I'm not trying to stir the Kool-Aid here but I saw this thread about 30 minutes after I found out some information that frankly pisses me off! So the Ragin' Cajun is out of her box and standing on top of it right now.
1. This isn't about minding your own business. This is about discrediting the profession as a whole. All it takes is a handful of unethical people and BOOM it's Enron and Arthur Anderson all over again. It diminishes the creditability of everyone in the field. Now I'm not walking around with rose colored glasses on, I know that people do stupid stuff all the time. But ultimately we will all suffer for it because we won't get to charge as much per billable hour if the whole country thinks we are all just looking out for ourselves and not really interested in protecting the public good. A few years ago, there was a big scandal at a university in Louisiana where some guy in the Registrars office was basically granting degrees for a price. If I remember correctly $30k would get you a Bachelors in Education and $60k would get you a Masters. One school board had to fire 1/3 of their teaching staff because their degrees were fake. Now, I know several people who went to that school and got their degrees legitimately. Do you think that this scandal didn't affect them? If so, think again. One of them lost her job even though she provided her transcripts and quite a few of the exams that she took. It didn't matter. There was a stigma associated with that school and there will be for a long time to come.
2. There are unethical people in every field. What I found out about 30 minutes ago, is that the four zero's that I was so proud of a few months ago, turned out to not be completely factual. It was more like 3 zero's and a damn 85! I was told by my doctor, a very respected endocrinologist, that my x-ray's were normal and there was no sign of the cancer metastisizing to any other organ or the bone. What I found out, once I finally got online access to my lab reports is that the x-ray wasn't quite that clean. There are several spots on my spleen. So I called the doctor's office and I was told “those really aren't big enough to worry about yet.” WTF!! When do I start to worry about them? When I'm in so much pain I can't stand up straight? When I can't stop throwing up? During my autopsy? When!?!? I should have been told as soon as she knew it. The x-ray was the scary test for me because one of the forms of cancer that I was diagnosed with doesn't respond to the normal treatment and that's the one I freaking failed!
3. Some people can take all of the ethics courses and ethics exams that are required and they will still make unethical decisions. Ethics isn't something that, in my opinion, can be taught. You are either an ethical person with a conscience or you are a dipsh!t that should be required to wear a sign around your neck, a Scarlet E perhaps.
4. If someone knows this type of thing is going on and can prove it, then you might want to make sure you aren't required to report it. You wouldn't want to jeopardize your own license for someone else.
The Ragin' Cajun is back in her box with the lid firmly attached. I'm still fuming mad but I'll shut up for now.
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