As other sectors enter the silly season awash with champagne receptions, corporate boxes at the cricket, and end-of-year festivities of sometimes operatic extravagance, I find myself contemplating the curious double standard that governs professional ethics in Australia.

In finance, in law and even across government departments, tickets to concerts, race meetings and the Grand Prix circulate freely.

These invitations often cost more per person than a doctor earns in a week, yet they are accepted as part of the normal etiquette of professional life.

Nobody questions whether a judge will lose impartiality because she attended a Christmas function or whether a departmental secretary will abandon objectivity after an evening in a corporate suite.

Yet a doctor who accepts a sandwich and a seat at an educational talk is treated as though they have mortgaged their conscience.