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. 2008 Jan;6(1):157-74.
doi: 10.4103/0973-1229.34714.

Medicine as a corporate enterprise: a welcome step?

Murali Poduval  1 , Jayita Poduval
Affiliations

Medicine as a corporate enterprise: a welcome step?

Murali Poduval et al. Mens Sana Monogr. 2008 Jan.

Abstract

The medical profession is set for a change. It is being redesigned as a corporate enterprise. The health-care industry has proved to be lucrative and therefore has seen the entry of newer players from the corporate field into the market. The "Medical-Industrial complex" has led to the commercialization of health care well beyond what traditional practitioners would consider ideal. Medicine is being treated as a business, with cost curtailment measures and profit margins often dictating physicians' choices. A number of factors decide working environment in a corporate setup, all of which may affect the sacrosanct physician-doctor relationship and "physician" ethics. On the other side, the ability of the corporate sector to bring about a welcome change in the health-care sector in terms of availability of newer modalities of management, implementation of preventive and personalized health-care programme and, at the same time, adding to the comfort of the treating physician cannot be ignored.

Keywords: Business; Corporate Enterprise in Medicine; Corporate Trust Hospitals; Health Care; Large Hospital Chains; Managed Health Care; Medical Profession and Corporate Culture; Medicine; Physicians in Corporate Setup.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare no conflicting interests in relation to the content or preparation of this manuscript. The first author (MP) was responsible for preparing and researching the manuscript. The second author (JP) proof-read and edited the manuscript and modified it for resubmission.

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