Docs need to improve, the 72% trust rating is not high, says pollster

Star: KUALA LUMPUR: Doctors may be rated as professionals most trusted by Malaysians but the level of trust in them is no way near absolute.
“Doctors should be concerned that they only got a 72% trust rating compared with the 90% that doctors in Britain enjoyed,” said Dr Zainal Abidin Abdul Majid, chairman of Business Ethics Institute of Malaysia (BEIM) which did the local survey.
“We have heard of mishaps and mismanagement involving doctors, so the Malaysian Medical Association (MMA) president should endeavour to improve doctors’ integrity and get them to abide religiously by their code of practice,” he said yesterday in response to MMA president Dr Teoh Siang Chin’s comments yesterday.
Dr Teoh had said that the MMA was honoured that Malaysians found doctors the most trustworthy and added that the profession rested on the public’s belief in doctors.
On Wednesday, The Star reported the results of the survey which had 2,074 respondents.
Of the 15 options, Malaysians trusted doctors the most, followed by teachers, professors, priests, scientists, judges, TV newsreaders, journalists, trade union officials, the police, civil servants, the man in the street, government ministers, business leaders and politicians.
The survey aimed to gauge Malaysians' trust in the integrity of several professions and to compare the findings with those of the survey conducted by a British opinion research organisation, Mori.
On International Islamic University dean of research Prof Datuk Dr Syed Arabi Idid’s comments that the survey was very localised and the majority of respondents were from universities and some from shopping malls in the Klang Valley, Dr Zainal Abidin said:
“This is not true. Though the survey was done in the Klang Valley, only 8% of respondents were from universities. On top of that, 28 organisations responded to the survey,” he said.