The Institutional Corruption of Medicine: Towards and institutional perspective

Is it corruption if a doctor writes a prescription for medication that harms the patient if the doctor, at that moment in time, truly believed that the medication did not harm, but in fact promoted the health or recovery of the patient? At the ELTE PhD conference, after presenting under the title of “The Institutional Corruption of Medicine” I was asked this very question. The aim of the presentation was to describe my research subject: the institutional corruption of the medical profession through ties with the pharmaceutical industry, and as such follows the controversial idea, that when the pharmaceutical industry commits a crime, doctors may share some of the responsibility.
Does this mean – as one research respondent asked in outrage – that I would wish to have a lawyer or a policeman follow every doctor around and oversee his/her practice? Would a doctor be labelled criminal if unknowingly, having the patients’ best interests at heart prescribed a drug that does more harm than good? This paper will explain the framework within which institutional corruption of the medical profession ensues, and what answers this may hold for the questions above.