The high status and high pay long associated with a career in medicine have long meant that becoming a doctor is a highly desired career choice that attracts the nation's brightest students.
However, there is growing concern that doctors' hearts are no longer always in the right place.
"As our society seems increasingly focused on fame and fortune, so are our medical professionals," said Lai Chi-wan (賴其萬), a speaker with the Andrew T. Huang Medical Education Promotion Fund.
The fund is hosting 10 speakers -- including five Taiwanese doctors and five from all over the world -- for this weekend's workshop on the importance of humanitarian medicine.
"We hope to help doctors better understand their social responsibility," Elizabeth Miller of the University of California at Davis said.
Miller will lecture would-be doctors on advocacy and professionalism at the workshop today.
Andrew Huang (黃達夫), the chief executive officer of the foundation and superintendent of Sun Yat-sen Cancer Center, said that the nation's medical care environment has become increasingly commercialized, to the detriment of patients.
"The more patients they see, the more money they make," Huang said. "But how can you say with a good conscience that you're taking care of patients if you see 100 of them in three hours?"
Huang also called for a more caring, patient-centered approach to medicine rather than emphasizing the newest equipment or the most expensive drugs.
"Proton therapy equipment might cost NT$5 billion [US$151.4 million] and help relatively few patients," Huang said. "But some hospitals purchase it because it's good publicity for their institution."
Some of the Taiwanese speakers at the workshop said that their decision to work in humanitarian medicine raised eyebrows and opposition from family members.
"As soon as we graduated from medical school, everybody was busy securing positions for themselves in hospitals while I turned to humanitarian medical work," said Chang Yan-di (張燕娣), another speaker and co-founder of the International Action and Cooperation Team (IACT). "I felt like an alien."
Solomon Chen (陳志成), another speaker, said that he had to overcome initial objections from his family to be part of a medical team that provided medical care and training to Malawi.
Chen is now a pediatric gastroenterologist at Pingtung Christian hospital.
"I would say that 80 percent of medical students in this country are studying to be doctors because of pressure from their family," he said.
"Because they studied medicine not for themselves but to please their family, a lot of our young medical professionals lose sight of what practicing medicine is supposed to be about -- helping people," he said.
"Instead, they only see the expectations for financial success and social status that they are supposed to attain," he said.
Earlier this year, a scandal broke at the Department of Health's Taitung Hospital.
The hospital's former chief of psychiatry, Chen Ming-tseh (陳明哲), was seen as a workaholic superstar until he was charged by the Taitung County Prosecutor's Office with massive fraud. Chen Ming-tseh allegedly prescribed expensive anti-depressants to healthy patients in return for kickbacks from pharmaceutical companies.
"There are many temptations and some doctors, just like a proportion of society as a whole, do not have the moral conviction to resist," Solomon Chen said when asked about Chen Ming-tseh's case.
Solomon Chen credited his religious faith with helping him stay centered in the "White Monolith," a term used in this country to describe the world inside a hospital.
He said he hoped the workshop would provide positive role models for would-be doctors while they are open to new ideas.
"By the time they reach a hospital, it is too late," Solomon Chen said. "While they are an intern, they will be too busy to think. And after that, they will be too concerned with climbing the career ladder to reconsider their priorities."
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