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Conceiving of the ends of the modern liberal regulatory agenda as public goods is a more promising approach than it might first appear, but in the end, it too does not succeed. This chapter critically evaluates public goods arguments for the various ends or goals of the modern liberal regulatory agenda. It finds that they either fail as public goods, or do not create genuine public goods problems, or the public goods problems that do exist can be solved through a tying arrangement with the provision of private goods and thus do not require state action.

This chapter articulates conversion arguments for and against the regulatory regimes overseen by the Occupational Health and Safety Administration, the Food and Drug Administration, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and the regulatory regimes that administer occupational licensure in the various states, with special attention to the licensing of physicians.

This chapter presents the regulatory structure for health care professionals with an emphasis on physicians. It traces the history of the formalization of the medical profession, initiated by the American Medical Association (AMA). This organization successfully induced every state to adopt a licensing process, and it standardized medical education based on the findings of the Flexner Report, issued in 1910. Regulation of the medical profession, including granting licenses to practice and imposing discipline, remains at the state level but with several federal and private organizations providing elements of national coordination. Oversight is also imposed by various other governmental and private bodies, including the federal Medicare program, specialty boards, health maintenance organizations, and hospitals. Similar regulatory arrangements govern osteopathic physicians and many allied health professions. The chapter concludes with a review of perennial policy conflicts, including that between licensure and consumer information as arbiters of professional quality.

American physicians have not always enjoyed the high incomes and social standing they do today. The American Medical Association worked with state governments in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to implement licensure requirements and professional self-regulation of training to standardize practice, improve quality, and boost incomes by restricting entry. Federal workforce programs in the mid-twentieth century greatly increased the profession’s size. However, the most important driver of the profession’s standing today isMedicare. Its guaranteed reimbursement dramatically increased earnings, especially in specialties that focus onelderly patients. It also reinforced, albeit inadvertently, an income differential favoring specialty practiceover primary care. Additional public support has come from the National Institutes of Health, which helps to develop technologies on which specialists rely. Government programs did not create the medical profession, however without them, the profession would be smaller, less technologically capable, and far less remunerative.

It seems the world of psychology is divided. Policies and implementations of professional psychology education, training, and practice differ in various regions of the globe, and qualifications for psychologists vary by country. This limits international mobility, unless the standards of one country can adapt to another country's standards. The need for doctoral training, the need for the appropriate degree to be awarded, the characteristics of a good training program and internship, the requirements for licensure, the form and value of continuing education, and the impact of relicensing procedures are just among the few issues that can be empirically scrutinized. It is imperative to address these issues and have a rational procedure, self-regulation, and attention given to the public. This chapter discusses the development stages of professional psychologists, particularly in America and in Canada, from professional training to internship, postdoctoral experience to licensure; each discussion here contains a summary of programs, training approaches, accreditation, and quality assurance.

This chapter explores the globalization's effects on modern IT-driven health care. It reports the driving forces behind this phenomenon and the U.S., European, and international responses to e-health and telemedicine. It provides an in-depth analysis of the legal regulation of these fields, focusing on licensure and liability, and shows how policy makers might bring together domestic and international regulatory efforts to better disseminate and use these technologies. IT has been and is in the midst of revolutionizing the ways health care is provided. Its beneficial possibilities are much more powerful once the provision of care to developing countries is considered, and especially to rural areas in those countries. The germane developments with respect to licensure and liability in the United States and the European Union are reported. The chapter also proposes a dedicated effort to establish a formal medical World Wide Web (M-WWW). The materialization of a M-WWW depends on a bifurcated maneuver.

This chapter explores the medical licensure and specialty certification environment in United States and examines the persistent difficulties with ensuring that all physicians keep up with the changing demands and advances in medicine. Government agencies (state and federal legislatures, departments and courts), multiple medical organisations, and market bodies (consumers and insurance companies) are intertwined in complex and conflict-prone interactions. This chapter critically explores if the United States can continue to leave it to medical professionals or local state legislatures to oversee maintaining competency and licensure. States currently vary as to the strategy they adopt, the preferred method reflecting local traditions and physician practices, leaving gaps in standards. Anti-regulation sentiments have been on the rise, with the result that efforts by some medical organisations to nudge others toward greater oversight have been stymied by others which launch legal and political challenges against regulatory changes. The diversity of institutions with a stake in the regulatory process complicates the matter. The chapter concludes that what tends to get lost in this state of affairs is the ‘public interest’.

This chapter discusses the professional identity of master’s industrial-organizational (I-O) psychology graduates. Implications for licensure within I-O psychology are reviewed. An important distinction is made between licensing and certification/credentialing, as well as an argument that establishing an I-O psychology certification process may be a viable means to maintain professional identity/brand and to encourage consistent graduate training in the field. Graduate Survey results are presented to highlight the benefits of professional organization memberships. The majority of I-O master’s graduates were members of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP) as graduate students; however, far fewer attend the SIOP annual conference regularly. Suggestions are provided for developing the professional identity of master’s I-O psychology graduates in the future.

One of the biggest hurdles to professionalizing non-nurse midwifery was the lack of any standardized training opportunities in the United States. Historically, midwives had learned their trade by apprenticing with those more experienced within their community. By the late twentieth century, however, the home birth trend triggered a regulatory backlash in many states, resulting in new and more restrictive licensure laws requiring education and certification. This chapter traces the evolution of the first and arguably the most successful fully accredited direct-entry midwifery program recognized by the U.S. Department of Education. As the school evolved, its founders faced philosophical and financial hurdles that required them to reconsider how to train students and promote midwifery as an inclusive, meaningful, and practical profession.