A candid remark by the Medical Council's chairwoman acknowledges the difficulty in monitoring the newly permitted scope of advertising by doctors. 'The council is unable to look at all newspapers or magazines every day because of its limited resources,' said Felice Lieh Mak.
The council opposed the relaxation of its former blanket ban, fearing public exploitation through misleading promotions. However, successive rulings in the High Court and Court of Appeal held that professional freedom of expression had been excessively curtailed and that the public had a legitimate right to know more.
It is disconcerting that the body charged with deterring unethical medical practices admits that its own policing powers are underresourced, and is reliant on public vigilance. The protection afforded by the Medical Council compares poorly with the legislative measures recently proposed by the Consumer Council to shield the public from deceptive practices.
Regrettably, those proposals exempted professions with their own regulators, such as doctors. The public should ideally be safeguarded by a zero-tolerance policy towards false and misleading medical advertisements, with penalties for violators.
Recent events and other legal challenges have shown that the Medical Council is underequipped for its primary responsibility: protecting the public by ensuring high standards of conduct. The council's failure to evolve, with respect to its composition, working manner and a code of professional conduct for practitioners, has left it struggling to command the confidence of the public as well as the profession.
With a lay representation of four members out of 28, the council's composition seems poorly representative. Judicial review proceedings over the past two years have established that it has: used unlawful procedures to reject complaints; failed to adequately specify the process by which qualifications may become quotable, and; been inconsistent in sentencing. A lack of transparency about the basis for rulings, a seeming absence of sentencing guidelines and a reluctance to make written judgments more readily available have fuelled criticism.