The V.I.P. Syndrome in medicine occurs when influential or powerful people receive special treatment, such as hospital rules and regulations being bent to keep them happy. Not only do VIPs demand and expect deferential treatment, most of us have been conditioned to provide them with this and doctors are quite happy to toe the line. Touting the fact that you are treating a VIP can be a major ego boost for doctors, and some will "leak" this to the media as a publicity stunt in order to attract more patients.
Doctors compete for the attention of VIPs, and many play a game of one-upmanship when a VIP is hospitalised, because they want to show that they were selected as his doctor of choice. Many bend over backwards in order to keep the VIP happy for their personal selfish reasons (for example, because they want a promotion). Others do it out of fear, because they don't want to be punished…
