Are We Losing Professional Integrity 

By on

'Integrity' highlighted in greenI have been thinking recently that there appears to be less professional integrity around than when I first started my career in electrical engineering. Recently the IET has also had a discussion around if engineers should sign an engineering equivalent of the Hippocratic Oath. While I’m not necessarily in favour of swearing oaths, it does illustrate that I’m not the only one thinking about integrity and ethics.

When I first started my career,  most professionals seemed to have a genuine interest in putting together the best solutions possible; within their ability and circumstances.  Everything wasn’t perfect, but people took pride in their work and wanted to make sure it was right for it’s own sake.  If things went wrong, they would try to fix it rather than cover it up. Today a lot of engineers seem preoccupied with salary, advancement, and being seen politically as acceptable.  Often I see really unsafe and poorly engineered solutions put forward as normal business practice and accepted without question.

I’m not saying that salary and advancement are un-important, nor that maintaining your integrity and standing up for it when the pack is against you is easy – but have we gone to far and lost something?  While a surgeon may one day want to be head of surgery at a large hospital, would we still expect him first and foremost to be a doctor.  Is it the same with electrical professionals. 

Personally I do feel that we seem to be losing integrity at the expense of … I guess materialism and personal gratification.

What do you think.  Have we lost integrity or do we still have it.  Should integrity even be expected or is looking only to yourself acceptable.



Steven McFadyen's avatar Steven McFadyen

Steven has over twenty five years experience working on some of the largest construction projects. He has a deep technical understanding of electrical engineering and is keen to share this knowledge. About the author

myElectrical Engineering

comments powered by Disqus



Bows and Arrows

It starts with me reading one of the Horrible History books with my son (Groovy Greeks). Arrows were mentioned which lead to the discussion of the bodkin...

DC Motor Operation

Coils of wire on the rotor carry a d.c. current which generates a magnetic field. A stator magnetic field is created using either permanent magnets or...

E-Ink

Before the technical, some general information. E-ink display are found in a lot of e-readers, some mobile phones and similar devices and the intent is...

Capacitors - Energy Storage Application

Capacitors have numerous applications in electrical and electronic applications.  This note examines the use of capacitors to store electrical energy....

Generation of a Sine Wave

A fundamental concept behind the operation of alternating current systems is that voltage and current waveforms will be sinusoidal – a Sine Wave. This...

Mobile Phones (Brick to Implant)

The mobile phone was born in 1973. They were the size of a brick and weighed a couple of kg, making them difficult to fit into your pocket. At a few thousand...

Power Transformers - An Introduction

One of the fundamental requirements of an alternating current distribution systems it to have the ability to change the magnitude of voltages.  It is more...

What are you reading!

Reading is a bit of a hobby of mine and I"ve done a few off-topic posts in the past on this. Rather than continue doing the occasional post I thought ...

What is Aircraft Ground Power

Ever wondered what kind of power an aircraft uses when parked at the airport stand. Normally the aircraft generates it own power, but when parked with...

How a Digital Substation Works

Traditionally substations have used circuit breakers, current transformers (CT), voltage transformers (VT) and protection relays all wired together using...

Have some knowledge to share

If you have some expert knowledge or experience, why not consider sharing this with our community.  

By writing an electrical note, you will be educating our users and at the same time promoting your expertise within the engineering community.

To get started and understand our policy, you can read our How to Write an Electrical Note