Distinguishing Ethical and Unethical Behaviors Among Practitioners

Every year, thousands of professionals lose their licenses, reputations, and freedom not because they were incompetent, but because they crossed the ethical line. The difference between an admired practitioner and a disgraced one often comes down to a handful of repeated choices. Here’s how to tell the difference — with side-by-side examples across major professions.

Medicine & Healthcare

Ethical Behavior	Unethical Behavior
Telling a patient the full truth about a cancer diagnosis, even when it’s hard	Downplaying the severity so the patient “won’t worry” or to keep them as a long-term patient
Refusing drug-company-sponsored vacations	Accepting an all-expenses-paid “conference” in the Maldives from a pharma rep
Reporting a colleague who smells of alcohol on shift	Staying silent because “he’s a nice guy and needs the job”
Documenting that you skipped a step because of an emergency	Falsifying charts to make it appear every protocol was followed
Recommending the cheaper generic that works just as well	Pushing the expensive brand-name drug that gives you the higher kickback
Maintaining strict boundaries with patients	Dating or sexually harassing a current or former patient
Turning away a VIP who demands to jump the queue	Bumping regular patients to accommodate a celebrity or politician

Law

Ethical Behavior	Unethical Behavior
Telling a client their case is weak and likely to lose	Taking the retainer anyway and stringing them along for billable hours
Withdrawing from a case you can no longer competently handle	Continuing to represent the client while knowing you’re out of your depth
Correcting the court when you accidentally misstate a fact	Letting the favorable misstatement stand
Refusing to coach a client to lie on the stand	Subtly (or not so subtly) encouraging perjury
Billing only for work actually performed	Padding hours or charging for work done on other clients
Keeping client funds in a separate trust account	“Borrowing” from the client trust account “temporarily”

Accounting & Finance

Ethical Behavior	Unethical Behavior
Blowing the whistle on cooked books (e.g., WorldCom, Enron cases)	Signing off on financial statements you know are fraudulent
Refusing to backdate stock options	Backdating options to increase executive compensation
Telling a client their tax strategy is illegal	Creating aggressive tax shelters that you know will be struck down
Declaring the $10,000 cash gift from a client	Hiding it to avoid taxes or scrutiny
Turning down a lucrative client involved in obvious money laundering	Taking the fees and looking the other way

Teaching & Education

Ethical Behavior	Unethical Behavior
Failing a student who truly didn’t master the material	Passing a failing student because their parent is on the school board
Reporting suspected abuse disclosed by a child	Ignoring red flags to avoid “getting involved”
Refusing to sell grades or letters of recommendation	Accepting cash or gifts for better grades or glowing recommendations
Accommodating a documented learning disability	Giving unfair advantages to athletes or donors’ kids without documentation
Keeping grades and feedback confidential	Sharing a student’s poor performance to shame them in front of peers

Therapy & Mental Health

Ethical Behavior	Unethical Behavior
Referring a client you’re attracted to another therapist	Starting a romantic or sexual relationship with a current or recent client
Keeping detailed session notes	Practicing with little or no documentation to avoid accountability
Respecting a client’s decision to stop therapy	Guilting or threatening a client to continue paying sessions
Reporting a client who admits credible plans to harm someone	Keeping a dangerous secret because of “confidentiality”

Journalism & Media

Ethical Behavior	Unethical Behavior
Correcting a published error prominently	Burying the correction or never issuing one
Refusing payment for favorable coverage	Accepting envelopes of cash for positive stories (common in some countries)
Blurring a minor’s face in a crime story	Publishing identifiable photos of children for clicks
Turning down a free luxury trip disguised as a “press junket”	Accepting the trip and writing glowing reviews

Research & Science

Ethical Behavior	Unethical Behavior
Sharing data openly when asked by peers	Hiding or falsifying data to protect your publication record
Giving the post-doc who did 90% of the work first authorship	Slapping your name as first author and the student last
Reporting when your experiment failed to replicate	Quietly dropping failed replications and publishing only successes
Obtaining genuine informed consent from participants	Using deception or pressure to boost enrollment numbers

The Common Thread — and Early Warning Signs

Across every profession, unethical practitioners almost always show the same red flags early:

• Treating rules as “guidelines” or “gray areas”
• Justifying small violations with “everyone does it” or “no one got hurt”
• Prioritizing money, status, or convenience over people
• Keeping secrets they wouldn’t want publicized
• Blaming the victim or the system when caught

Ethical practitioners, by contrast, habitually ask:
“If this became public tomorrow, could I defend it?”
“Who might be harmed by this choice—even indirectly?”

Key Takeaways

The line between ethical and unethical practice isn’t mysterious or subjective. It’s measured by honesty, fairness, respect for boundaries, and willingness to accept consequences.

Most career-ending scandals didn’t start with a single catastrophic decision; they started with a small compromise that was never corrected.

Protecting a profession’s integrity — and your own — begins with refusing the first shortcut, the first lie, the first exploitation of trust. Because once the line blurs even slightly, it rarely stops blurring on its own.
Choose the hard right over the easy wrong — every single time — and the distinction becomes unmistakable.