Initially appeared on doktorko.com 3/5/2005.
This week the BIR announced that it would conduct "lifestyle checks" on MDs working in the top hospitals in the RP. In other words, it wants to ferret out those who under-declare their incomes in order to generate bigger profits that will fund their posh lifestyles. Here are a few links (apologies; you'll have to cut and paste onto your browser):
http://news.inq7.net/opinion/index.php?index=4&story;_id=27352
http://news.inq7.net/opinion/index.php?index=1&story;_id=27349
Don't you just love it when people defend themselves by pointing fingers? It almost sounds like Bin Laden claiming innocence because Hitler killed more people. IMHO, doing so is tragic and just downright stupid. "Why doesn't the BIR look at big business, politicos, and other professions?" [paraphrased] - whines one MD. Well, isn't the proof of innocence the best defense? We love it when congressmen are investigated - because we just KNOW that they're dishonest. Corollary: if we OURSELVES are clean, law-abiding citizens, why should we loathe showing our books to the authorities? It boggles the mind.
Since when has fiscal transparency become unjust? Some MDs are now crying foul, gnashing their teeth, and protesting at the top of their lungs about how doctors are being demonized. The malpractice bill was the first salvo, they claim; this will be the death blow.
Frankly, this is LIGHT YEARS away from that idiotic malpractice bill, which implies that many (if not most or even all) doctors are loose cannons - incompetent, half-trained buffoons just waiting for the proper opportunity to kill their patients. Now THAT is dangerous, simply because it undermines and second-guesses doctors' abilities and makes clinical judgement subject to unfair and misinformed scrutiny by laypersons. Doctors' competence should be judged by their professional peers (i.e. those who understand the real issues involved) - period. All doctors make mistakes but not all mistakes should be penalized.
In contrast, lifestyle checks do not call competence into question, but rather INTEGRITY. Given all the heat our profession has been under recently, i would have thought that we doctors would be falling all over ourselves at the chance to prove our honesty - not fighting tooth and nail to keep our sources of wealth hidden and therefore questionable. I have no qualms about anyone questioning MY integrity (although i admit that it would throw me off at first), because i know that it will remain untarnished through any investigation. But these people who refuse... Jeez, WHAT ARE YOU HIDING?!
Someone claimed that this would lead to the eventual demise (i.e. serve as "the fatal blow") of the profession in the RP. And why, pray tell, is that? Because prospective MDs know that they WON'T be able to make a DISHONEST living??? I sincerely hope that's not what you meant, kind sir, because if it is, then it says more about you than it does about the profession. True, young minds DO need inspiration, but wouldn't it be MORE inspiring to show that we are law-abiding citizens who have merely been unfairly singled out? Wouldn't it be better to show the whole world that we have NOTHING to hide? That we have only been unfairly and unjustly accused of wrong?
Having the medical profession acquiesce to the lifestyle check opens the door to the investigation of other professions (if the doctors can do it, why can't the lawyers? or the actors? or even - gasp! - the politicians?). It lets the tax evaders know that they can't keep hiding forever. It gives us doctors a chance to lead the way, to show that we are not as haughty as other people think. More importantly, it blasts through the stereotype of rich people not wanting to be accountable, and restores confidence that we have - despite some claims to the contrary - always been (and always will be) a noble profession. If not the noblest.
And refusing to be fiscally transparent? THAT would be the fatal blow.
WORST of all, it would be self-inflicted.
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