Almost every licensee has undergone rigorous educational training and obtained a degree, completed years of progressive work experience following their formal education and then passed comprehensive and challenging examinations to become a professional engineer or a professional land surveyor. This all but insures a minimum level of technical competence at the entry level to the profession. Rather it is almost always a question of negligence or misconduct which has placed the public at risk and the professional in jeopardy. In some instances, the unprofessional act occurs as a result of pressure applied by a client or an employer. This occurs most often with younger professionals or in instances where a practice is new and in need of all the business it can get.
Economic survival can be a powerful incentive to stretch the envelope.
When I was a young man, fresh out of University, acting in an ethical manner seemed to be a straightforward proposition. An action was either right or wrong, black or white, moral or immoral. As an older and hopefully wiser man, I still try to guide my life by lofty principles, but I have learned that recognizing right from wrong and black from white is not always a simple thing to do. Every situation I find myself in is in some way different from any other I have ever experienced. As new scenarios are added to a job situation the ethical mix changes and the boundary between ethical and unethical conduct, perhaps already gray in nature, sometimes shifts.