Resistance to lay control was the cornerstone of medicine.
If professional status meant anything to American physicians,
it was the right to set the standards and define the terms ofmedical education, licensing, and practice-in short, they hadconstructed a monopoly that left them as the sole arbiters ofmedical affairs. And while the profession was hardly mono-lithic, it was remarkably homogeneous. There was little dangerthat the values and attitudes of physicians would be testedagainst those of the larger society. - P95