News p 69 Reviews pp 122, 123

The growing dissatisfaction among doctors with the General Medical Council (the regulatory authority for doctors in the United Kingdom), which I wrote about just six weeks ago, has now boiled over.1 The British Medical Association's annual representative meeting last week passed by a substantial majority a vote of no confidence in the council (p 69).2 Despite intense battles in the past between council leaders and rank and file doctors, this is a historic first. The meeting voted in favour of self regulation and revalidation and only one or two representatives spoke in favour of scrapping the GMC. The discontent is with the state of the GMC and its current leadership. Could everything be solved if the leadership resigned? When football teams lose repeatedly, their managers go. Should medicine follow football? As always, it's easier to moan about the problems than identify the solutions.

The doctors' dissatisfaction has many causes …