It is the heart of the professing of medicine, ie, the public declaration and promise that physicians can be trusted to use their skills for something other than their own benefit. Individual physicians privately make this promise whenever they invite trust by offering their skills to help someone who is ill. When physicians form professional associations, they should make this promise collectively. They become members of a moral community dedicated to the primacy of those who need their help. That is why the ethical principles that medical associations ought to follow are so similar to those guiding the behavior of individual physicians.
Professional associations exist to proclaim, protect, refine, teach, and enforce that behavior.
Without such a commitment, they easily degenerate into self-serving trade associations, lobbies, or unions. Sadly, this is the direction in which, to varying degrees, some professional medical associations seem to be drifting. Too many have already become corporatized entities in pursuit of profit to finance bulky administrative staffs or to lobby for the protection of privileges and the benefit of their members. Some associations have come to resemble guilds or mutual benefit societies. Clearly, the public has perceived this trend and no longer trusts those associations to act on its behalf.