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



Write your best report

Years ago I was told that you should always try to write the best report you can.  Many years later I still think on this as one of the better pieces of...

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...

EU Code of Conduct on Data Centres - Best Practices

The European Union is implementing a voluntary code of practice for participants with the aim of improving the overall efficiency of data centres. As part...

Questions - Reputation and Privilege

Our question and answer system while letting you do exactly what it says, is much more.  It is a dynamic user driven system, where our users not only ask...

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 ...

Getting Started with Patents

If you have a great idea or invent something the last thing you want is someone to steal the idea. One of the things you can do is protect the intellectual...

Electromechanical Relays

Electromechanical relays have been the traditional backbone of electrical protection systems.  While over recent years these have been replaced by microprocessor...

Microsoft OneNote

A couple of months ago I came Microsoft's OneNote and downloaded the 60 day free trail. Since then I have been using it regularly and now have a full license...

Capacitor Theory

Capacitors are widely used in electrical engineering for functions such as energy storage, power factor correction, voltage compensation and many others...

Cable Sheath and Armour Loss

When sizing cables, the heat generated  by losses within any sheath or armour need to be evaluated. When significant, it becomes a factor to be considered...

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