So much has been said about the professional ethics of the doctors of the Vicente Sotto Memorial Hospital who allowed a video taken of a procedure where a spray can was removed from the anus of a homosexual. The video landed in YouTube and it showed the medical staff laughing and giggling throughout the operation. The accusations against the doctors are valid, the defense by their lawyers pathetic and the opinion of the clergy about all of it being the fault of the patient nonsensical — which, amazingly enough, has been denied in subsequent apologetic clarificatory statements.

Anyway, I like the fact that someone put the scandal in the context of the Teri Hatcher “Desperate Housewives” brouhaha not too long ago.

If Filipinos here and abroad were offended by Hatcher’s throwaway line in “Desperate Housewives,” these people say, they should not let the persons responsible for allowing the video to be posted—to say nothing of the “unprofessional” attitude of the staff present during its taking—go unpunished. And they do have a point, if the authorities want to show that they really care about our overseas health workers. ["The Teri Hatcher factor" by Jojo Robles]

Now then, you must have heard the radio ads of spouses Manuel and Rosario Calayan. They are both doctors and, over the radio, they recite ads about the services offered in their clinic. I always hear their ads when I am in the car and every time I do, I want to switch stations. The “recitations” are full of grammatical errors, you add that to the bad pronunciation and it’s difficult to understand what the heck they’re talking about. If I hadn’t heard the ads much too often, I probably still wouldn’t know. It’s no crime to be bad in English but doctors are expected to be better educated than beauty contestants so the constant repetition of the TAPED ads is more than a little irritating to the ears and sensibilities.

Anyway, the spouses got sued by a patient who said that after undergoing penile enlargement, he was no longer capable of having sex. Manuel Calayan countered that it was the patient’s fault for not desisting from sex for a month after the operation. Among other things, penile enlargement is one of the services advertised by the Calayans.

Ragardless of whoever is at fault for the plight of patient with the now-malfunctioning penis, what really irritates me is the ethics angle. Professionals advertising themselves like that is just so… CHEAP. Legal ethics ban lawyers from advertising their professional services, save for simple recitations of names, education and professional credentials in business cards and the like. It’s a dignity issue. Still, we see lawyers volunteering to be interviewed by the media, especially where a controversial client is involved, or doing a la Rene Cayetano stunts on TV, and you have to be really dense if you can’t see through those gimmicks as thinly-veiled advertisements for themselves. That’s how a lot of lawyers get clients.

Anyway, I’ve been wondering for a long time whether there is no similar prohibition among medical practitioners. You know, so that doctors don’t go around selling their services the way a hooker does.

Actually, I often wonder if there isn’t all that much difference between hookers and lawyers and doctors after all. Or any other professional, in fact. Perhaps, the prostitution just comes in different flavors.