Doctors’ ethics

Re “Profits turn doctor against doctor,” April 12

As a former member of the faculty in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology of the USC School of Medicine and a practicing fertility specialist since 1973, I read with dismay your article about the “fierce competition” and “cutthroat business” at a Pasadena fertility clinic.

Being a physician is a privilege. Whether it is the misuse of embryos, the transfer of excessive numbers of embryos or the release of creative statistics that exaggerate success rates, we see in a few physicians an aberrant behavior pattern -- one that no doubt began as early as preschool and certainly no later than Little League.

Those physicians who don’t behave ethically will embarrass the great majority of fertility specialists and other physicians who do.

Charles M. March MD

Los Angeles