Dr Alfred Sparman has changed the face of Health Promotions in Barbados forever. Pushing the envelop, the entrepreneurial cardiologist whose entry to Barbados in 2001 was met with some resistance, has on top of this, made many turn to the fraternity’s professional code of conduct with regard to advertising.
Granted there is need for some research on the code and its rationale. My first thoughts however, as a student of communications, is that it is antiquated and has no place in our new capitalist society. What is so innately horrible about advertising that local professional codes of practice for doctors, lawyers and architects prevent them from doing so? This archaic rule maintains the status quo and gives the Establishment the edge, enforcing a level of conformity and conservatism that is speedily disappearing from the Bajan everyday reality.