The GMC: expediency before principle: Are doctors failing or is the system?

doi:10.1136/bmj.330.7485.253

BMJ 2005;330:253 (29 January), doi:10.1136/bmj.330.7485.253

Letter

The GMC: expediency before principle

Are doctors failing or is the system?

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—The GMC suggests that its job is guiding doctors,¹but when I wrote for guidance on reasonable practice I was toldthat it could not offer guidance on specific areas as consensuswas too difficult to obtain. I instead had to contact a medicaldefence organisation for advice.

I was concerned that the GMC had lost its way. A lawyer frienddescribed the GMC as an archaic court whose primary interestis to stop doctors from embarrassing each other. Though harsh,this explains the council's near fanatical zeal in stoppingdoctors from falling in love with their patients and the slownessof its response for doctors who deliberately kill them.

The answer is to scrap the concept of serious professional misconduct.The GMC should be interested solely in whether the doctor committeda crime and how that should affect the doctor's practice. Thiswork would include ensuring that . . . [Full text of this article]

Mark I Burgin, general practitioner

Rotherham Road Medical Centre, Barnsley S71 1UT mb014x1740@blueyonder.co.uk