Dr. Gary Kerkvliet, an associate program director of internal medicine at Sinai Hospital, has lost patience with the handful of corporate executives who make a mess of their companies and leave employees and investors hung out to dry.

"I'm as frustrated as anybody with Ken Lay," he said, referring to the former Enron chief, "with all these CEOs who get golden parachutes while people are left working in the trenches."

"I think government needs to be powerful in its ability to regulate [corporations]. Laissez-faire just gets you into a situation where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer," said the 38-year-old doctor, a Minnesota native who lives with his wife in Cockeysville.

He helps oversee 55 young doctors who are completing their training at the hospital in Northwest Baltimore.

"Keeping in mind that we're turning these doctors loose on the world, I think all of us who supervise them feel a sense of responsibility to the physicians in training, but also to future patients," Kerkvliet said.

"I think people try to be truthful, but there's a lot of things competing in the background for the truth," he said, striving to resist cynicism. "I don't think you ever get the whole truth."