I always remember the discussion we had in PSHE when we were in year 7. There are 6 people in a hot air baloon; a doctor, a businessman, a teacher, a lawyer, a rock star and an unemployed person, and the baloon only has enough gas to hold up one person, so which 5 would you kick out?
The doctor almost always won. It's a stupid example, but general surveys and the like list doctors as trusted, respectable members of society.
A further point re. investment banking, so perhaps not strictly 'business' as described in this thread but anyway, the head of european stuff at citibank came and spoke to us about becoming IBers. The first thing he said was, 'you don't need to be especially clever to do this. We know you are bright because of you 2:1 from a good uni. We just want people who will put in more hours than the next person.' In a way, medicine has a similar work ethic, but the academic demands to get into a career like medicine (certain specialties much more so than others) surpass that of many business jobs.