WHILE health professionals generally have again maintained their position in society as the most highly regarded professions in the latest Roy Morgan Research polls, pharmacists have lost ground to GPs and nurses.
Nurses, for the past 23 years running, have consistently ranked top of the list, this year scoring 94% 'high' or 'very high' (up 2%) ahead of GPs at 89% (up 3%) - while the rating for pharmacists declined 2% with the profession scoring 84%.
Last year, pharmacists and GPs both ranked second to nurses, both scoring 86%.
Dentists registered 79% but were pipped by both school teachers at 81% and engineers at 80%.
Of all 30 professions surveyed in 2017, 16 decreased in regards to ethics and honesty while 12 professions increased and only two were unchanged according to the survey conducted in the last week of May with 648 Australian respondents.
University lecturers at 66% (down 2%) rated well below their school teacher colleagues with a gap of 15% in contrast to their closest result in 1988 when only 2% separated them.
Biggest losers were ministers of religion (34%), talk-back radio announcers (14%), stockbrokers (11%) and car salespeople (4%) all of whom ranked lower scores than previously, with car salespeople scoring the lowest approval for the past 36 years running.
Considering the relatively low numbers of Australians surveyed, the data could have close to a plus or minus 4.5% margin of error, the report said.
See details at roymorgan.com.
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