Do Professional Associations Really Regulate The Profession?

There was an interesting article in the 17 September 2008 Vancouver Sun, entitled “Rogue Nurses Leave Quietly”.

It turns out that between January 2006 and November 2007, as a result of participating in various criminal activities, 45 nurses cut a deal with their professional and licensing association, the College of Registered Nurses and quietly quit their profession.

Simply said, the College failed to discipline 45 nurses who broke the College’s ethical code. The College failed its basic mission: To regulate the profession.

These nurses were involved in various nasty acts, including...

• Stealing narcotics for their personal use
• Physically and emotional abuse of patients
• Administering incorrect medication
• Mismanaging blood transfusions.
• Physically attacking elderly residents
• Being drunk on shift

These nurses made an agreement with the college to quit nursing, and in return the College didn’t press charges against them. Basically, they got away with their crimes.

The only trace of their criminal act is a brief listing in the College’s newsletter, BC Nursing.

And some really quit the profession, but six of them re-registered and continues working as nurses.

And this is not even a one off case. On average, 40 nurses per year leave the profession due to misconduct, but without disciplinary hearing.

The only reason the College must publicise these misconducts is if the cases go to formal disciplinary hearing. But, despite the 40 cases per year, the College hasn’t held such disciplinary hearings in years.

So, here you have it...

A friend of mine jokingly says that the people who know their stuff actually do it. People who know it less teach it. And the ones who are hopeless to achieve even the lowest level of competence, they form associations, organise certification programmes and try to regulate the profession they are hopelessly incompetent at.

In my view all these regulation bodies are all about shameless money grabbing.

In 1998, when I came to Canada, the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists (APEG) almost took me to court because I “dared” to call myself an engineer in some formal correspondence.

I was told I had no right to call myself an engineer in British Columbia, unless APEG permits me to do so. And it turned out all it would have taken me to obtain this mystic permission was by becoming a member and paying my membership dues. So, then I learnt that this is how almost all professional associations operated. You pay and you can purchase titles and positions.

That's a rather loud and clear message about credibility.

Over the years, I’ve come across only a handful of truly professional associations that don’t merely “regulate” the profession, but actually help and support their members in the quests to become masters of their chosen professions. Two of them definitely are the IEE (Institution of Electrical Engineers) in the UK and BCRPA (British Columbia Recreation and Park Association) here in Vancouver.

I also believe that it’s not the associations that regulate members, but members regulate themselves through their own core values and ethical standards.

And when scumbags join these associations, they carry on as scumbags. Well, member scumbags. Nothing changes.

I bet many of the naughty characters at Arthur Andersen, Enron, WorldCom, etc, were members of various professional associations to buy their titles. But at the end of the day they gave in to the temptation of wrongdoing due to their own personal values, and not even the code of ethics of their respective professional associations could hold them back from cutting corners.

Then the question comes up: Do we really need these “professional" associations?

I suppose, by now you know my answer. Well, hell... no.