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“A physician leader is different than another leader,” said Dr. Charles Binkley, director of bioethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University. “A hospital leader has different moral obligations.” It’s impossible to meet those moral obligations, said Binkley, when you are also a board member “with a fiduciary responsibility to propel the profits of a company” — not to mention the opportunity to enrich yourself from those company profits.

For employees, said Binkley, “What people see is a physician leader making a lot of money ... while freezing and cutting salaries at their institution. Meanwhile, a patient may rightly wonder, ‘Is what I’m being prescribed, treated with, benefiting me or the person prescribing it?‘”

Charles Binkley, director of Bioethics quoted in the The Boston Globe.