Are doctors charging too much for professional fees?

How do doctors make a living?

- DR. EDSEL MAURICE T. SALVANA

Last week, doctors and medical societies were up in arms when a retired media practitioner publicly shamed a doctor for what he felt was an unreasonable professional fee that was charged to the mother of his friend.

The doctor, a renowned wound-care specialist and cardio-thoracic surgeon, had supposedly charged an exorbitant professional fee for taking care of a woman who had transferred from another hospital to the Philippine Heart Center, a government hospital that also caters to private patients.

With all the acrimony that has been thrown around on social media, it is difficult to separate fact from fiction at this point. The uproar, however, does highlight a frequently misunderstood aspect of a physician's practice: the professional fee.

Doctors all swear to uphold the Hippocratic Oath, which sets out the ethical standards for the practice of medicine. Since we take care of our fellow human beings, medicine is naturally an altruistic profession. Doctors, however, just like everyone else, need to make a living. In medical school, we are taught that the professional fee is incidental to healing people, and we should never let the capacity to pay affect our efforts in treating a patient. This doesn't mean that we shouldn't charge a fair amount for our services. The cost of

The cost of training as a doctor is tremendous, and we have all sacrificed our time, blood, sweat, and tears to acquire the skills that we have.