Doctors may still be regarded as one of the most respected professionals, but they are really no different from other practitioners ("Health check for medical ethics"; Aug 19).

As humans, they are just as frail and subject to the same moral, morale and physical vulnerabilities.

Doctors are as fallible in their professional or financial decisions, given to the same minor foibles as well as major indiscretions, and share the same inherent irrationality and moral fibre weakness of their contemporaries.

Current medical practice is as much about financial and personal fame as it is about the haloed principle of salving patients' pain from disease.

Sleaze and shenanigans are perpetuated in every quarter of society by a multitude of miscreants from all professions.

Integrity, loyalty, compassion, trustworthiness and dedication should be criteria of entry into all professions.

Emotional quotient tests, psychological assessments, interviews and short internships in work-related environments help but do little in deciding vocational suitability and can be gamed by wily candidates.

Like it or not, deficient selection processes for would-be doctors, as for all other professions, are here to stay.

Yik Keng Yeong (Dr)