[Bizarre advertisements by hospitals in the Dutch Journal of Medicine]

The advertisements in this journal show that hospitals in the Netherlands are using increasingly bizarre texts to recruit physicians. Not only do they unflinchingly exaggerate phrases to describe their achievements--'top-clinical care', 'customer-orientation', 'quality improvement'--but they even emphasize their attractive surroundings and the fervor of their policy. One wonders whose interests are being served by these inflated advertisements. They are, however, clearly at odds with the advertising restrictions imposed upon individual physicians.