Letters
Health services administration
Volume 188 - Issue 9

A national medical register: balancing public transparency and professional privacy

Authors:  Judith M Healy and Paul Dugdale

Med J Aust 2008; 188 (9): 549-550. || doi: 10.5694/j.1326-5377.2008.tb01782.x
Published online: 5 May 2008
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In reply: Arnold makes some interesting points about the balance of state and professional involvement in medical registration arrangements. Wherever the balance is struck, politicians, bureaucrats and medical professionals all derive their power in some measure from the public whom they serve.

Our point is that variations in registration information and public access to multiple registers make it difficult for members of the public to access and use the information, especially given the mobility of the medical workforce between jurisdictions. A public national medical register should be seen as a practical measure to improve public accountability, rather than as a battleground between the profession and the bureaucrats.

We did not express a view in our article1 on how national access to medical registration details should be arranged. As Arnold suggests, the Australian Medical Council is one candidate for maintaining a national database. It is well placed to publicly call on the existing state medical registration boards to cooperate speedily to make national access a reality, pending the negotiations underway regarding a national medical board.

Authors

  • Judith M Healy1
  • Paul Dugdale1
  • 1. Australian National University, Canberra, ACT.

Correspondence: judith.healy@anu.edu.au

References

View this article on Wiley Online Library

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