Letters
Health services administration Ethics
Volume 190 - Issue 2

Mandatory reporting of professional incompetence

Author:  Peter C Arnold

Med J Aust 2009; 190 (2): 103-104. || doi: 10.5694/j.1326-5377.2009.tb02301.x
Published online: 19 January 2009
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In reply: The opinion expressed by Dunbar and Reddy that: “The real problems in Bundaberg were that there were no local mechanisms for health professionals to raise their concerns” ignores the many real difficulties (canvassed in my editorial)1 confronting any member of staff who tried to raise their concerns within that institution. Local mechanisms cannot play their part if the institution’s senior staff do not wish to implement them.

The ability of and, indeed, encouragement for all staff, regardless of seniority, to report their concerns directly to the medical board, bypasses all local deterrents. Our medical boards have the experience needed to sort out the major from the trivial, the genuine from the frivolous, incompetence from impairment.

Dunbar and Reddy continue: “The evidence against relying solely on medical boards and in favour of local procedures for managing poorly performing doctors is now incontrovertible.” This is a straw man. No one, to my knowledge, has made any such suggestion.

What I support is: (i) a direct avenue for someone local to report to the medical board; (ii) diligent and sensitive enquiry by the medical board; and (iii) if needed, the cooperative implementation of remediation by the local entity and the medical board.

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