In the U.S., nothing brings out the policy wonks like the subject of health care. The profits of the health care industry have been soaring, while the legions of uninsured has reached a staggering 48 million.

One under-explored angle on this problem is the culture of rankism that infects the medical community and plagues the major health care organizations in the U.S. While Britain has engaged the medical community in a public discussion of physician-on-physician bullying, similar concerns in the U.S. have been downplayed. However, the U.S. public is slowly coming to realize that dysfunctional administration profoundly influences the delivery of health care and leads to many unnecessary deaths every year.

Interestingly, the controversy over investment in a national EMR, has opened a wedge between traditional physician interest groups and the advancement of technology, which has allowed a few mavericks to break ranks and debunk the myths that have granted the MDeities fate-making powers over those in need of medical care.

Mounting evidence of medical student abuse (particularly in regard to women), suggest that subjection to hazing in medical school shapes physician attitudes about rank and entitlement later in their career. As long as rankist practices and traditions remained hidden behind the cloak of “professional matters”, there could be no public comment on the gross social and organizational distortions created by physician culture. Now, as the death toll mounts, it has become evident that medical student abuse and endemic rankism in health care organizations are problems that demand public attention and legislative oversight.