Abstract

Is medical commerce a recent phenomenon? Does it distort the patient–physician relationship? Are investor-owned firms the main source of medical commercialism? I contend that medicine has generally been commerce in the United States, that medical commerce is a problem when it creates or worsens physicians' conflicts of interest, and that these conflicts thrive in nonprofit organizations as well as in investor-owned firms. I provide a historical sketch to show that physician entrepreneurialism, rather than commerce generally, is the main source of physicians' conflicts of interest