All of our authors acknowledge that the problem of commercialism is extremely complex.
Unfortunately, the ethical proscriptions have been emasculated by financial pressures, by increasing commercialism of academic medicine, and by profiteering.
However, the central problem of commercialism in medicine today, as in the past, is physician entrepreneurship.
However, these essays are about much more than the connivance or complicity of physicians with commercialism.
More importantly, we wish to understand whether commerce and commercialism are compatible with the essential goals and work of medicine.
Other physicians, while disliking the constraints and moral compromises involved in commercialism, comply with them because the system seems overwhelming and inevitable.
In doing so, the artists wanted to carve a new path that married commercialism, because of its appeal, with fun, thoughtful, internationalist art.
Just imagine the impact of commercialism on young minds in medicine, trying to gain their bearings and set their moral compass.
