It insures your right to a lawyer only if you are a qualified person accused in a criminal trial.

But will supply you a lawyer.

You are, for example, not guaranteed a lawyer when you divorce or if you are sued.

The point being, there are circumstances, written into the Comstitution, guaranteeing a right to the services of a lawyer.

There are no circumstances under which the Constitution guarantees the government to furnish you with a clergyman or a doctor.

right to have access to a pastor of your choice. Of course, the pastor has to be willing to serve as your pastor and may need money in exchange for that. But there are lay pastors who volunteer. You aren't guaranteed that the pastor will serve you, but you are guaranteed that you can have any pastor you want who will serve you.

Therefore I would say you have the right to a pastor.

You do not always have the right to be represented by a lawyer in court. For example, in the small claims courts where I live, litigants may not be represented by a lawyer with, perhaps, the exception of corporations.

For an atheist like myself, all clergy are just talking about made up stuff. I don't know where the malpractice comes in.
If we are talking about con artists who rip off their congregation, that is one thing, if we are talking about how they lead their church or temple or mosque, where does malpractice come in?

Law is "made up stuff" too.

Is there, or can there be, clerical malpractice?

I'll let you know if I think it can be.

Would be those circumstances in which they were acting as an unlicensed psychological counselor, and holding them to the same standard of competence.

They could avoid liability by, for example, an affirmative duty to advise patients that they should consider the services of a licensed therapist.

especially those (and there are more than we would care to admit0 who blame it on devils or demons.

Lawyers and clergy are often insulated by the passage of decades while their clients rot in cells or quietly ponder suicide.

multiple cases and they are rarely stopped from practicing by the licensing boards.

Also varies a lot by geographical area as to how closely MDs are regulated.

Those that choose high risk practices are more likely to get sued, while those that take the safe routes are less likely.

Boards do revoke or suspend licensees all the time. Just look at any Board's newsletter and you can see the long list of those who have gotten into trouble.

While I think the self-policing of medicine is faulty and it is better done in some states than others, I think it is pretty effective. Hospital privileging committees are also effective in most cases.

At any rate, board actions against physicians are not rare.

if you want to seriously discuss this.

Are you basing your "getting defrocked" statement on a hunch? data? assumption?

You say you don't know the actual numbers for doctors and lawyers, so I question whether you know them for clergy.

Or did you set this up with a preconceived conclusion?

Then it might occur to you that what I means by "I'd like to see" is that I do not know, and suggested "I'd like to see" as both an admission that I do not know, in the hope that perhaps someone else might.

If this type of a conversational device is unfamiliar to you, let's try an example:

Person 1 "I'd like to know the capital of New Hampshire. I could be wrong, but I'd guess it is Montplelier."

Person 2: "You should really find out the capital of New Hampshire before posting ."


In that example, Person 2 is chastising Person 1 for not having the correct answer when, in context, what Person 1 was doing was stating they did not know the capital of New Hampshire, and proposing a guess.

Person 1's statement is intended to invite discussion of what may or may not be the capital of New Hampshire, and most certainly cannot be understood as any kind of definite statement asserting its identity.

All I can figure is that you put it in this group because you had already assumed the answer (lawyers better than doctors better than clergy) and you wanted some kind of support for that.

At any rate, no one appears to know, though I am sure the data is out there somewhere.

Good luck with your quest.

be possible to make any valid comparison.

I don't know about lawyers, but sanctioned physicians often have many options open to them. Those that have developed issues with substance abuse can, and often are, routed into treatment programs and longer term monitoring programs. Those who are simply incompetent in some area may have the opportunity for retraining and supervision.

And people respond to my post, but do not respond to my question or my point. This has happened to me twice on DU. What makes it particularly infuriating is that each time someone has said that they have answered me, while in fact they have not.

For medical malpractice statistics in Washington State, see the 2011 Medical Malpractice Annual Report. I had trouble finding national figures, the National Bureau of Economic Research, which I would have thought would be useful, is not.

to get cumulative data.

Does the ABA oversee lawyers in all states?

And there is no equivalent for either method among the clergy. You can get a *license* to be a *minister* on line for $50. It is, of course, entirely bogus.

Abuse of power being one and mishandling of finances another. Are there denominations that provide remedial options for those that stray? Some do, some don't, I would suppose.

The Catholic church did an abysmal job of identifying, treating and/or dismissing those who were committing heinous acts while wearing the cloth, but I don't know about other denominations.