The General Medical Council and the future of revalidation: Regulation, regulation, regulation

doi:10.1136/bmj.330.7505.1447

BMJ 2005;330:1447 (18 June), doi:10.1136/bmj.330.7505.1447

Letter

The General Medical Council and the future of revalidation

Regulation, regulation, regulation

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

EDITOR—Although impressed by the intellectual rigour DameJanet Smith brought to her inquiry,¹ I am left with some questionsafter reading the article by Esmail.² Did she consider recommendingthe system her own profession uses to revalidate solicitors,barristers, and judges. And, if she did, why did she rejectit?

I hope she would agree that both professions merit a similarstandard of regulation. My own experience implies that incompetentdoctors are responsible for no greater levels of morbidity,or even of premature mortality, than incompetent lawyers.

Dame Janet is also reported to have urged the General MedicalCouncil to assume the power to expel "unsuitable" medical students,proposing "a test of ethics as a useful and sensible means ofweeding out and failing students who had not managed to absorbessential ethical principles that they would be expected topractise throughout their career."³

If the government does . . . [Full text of this article]

Michael O'Donnell, former general practitioner turned journeyman writer

Loxhill GU8 4BD michael@odonnell99.freeserve.co.uk