Infamous conduct
Sir: All right-minded, GMC-fearing medical men will applaud the courage and loyalty, if not the wisdom, of Mr M. R. Draper in venturing into print (February 17) in defence of the organisation of which he is Registrar. He takes Dr J. R. Wilson to task for describing the GMC as judge, jury and prosecutor in cases of professional misconduct. He then describes how this cannot possibly be for, believe it or not, one committee of the GMC decides on prosecution and quite another (except for the president) does the judging. Truly a noble example of divorce of the left from the right hand!
But this is not all: so that justice may not only be done to the medical sinner by a judge and jury, the vast majority of whom are doctors appointed arbitrarily by the Privy Council and various academic bodies (including the Society of Apothecaries of Dublin), but that justice shall also be seen to be done, there is a legal assessor. He shall be "a barrister, advocate or solicitor of not less than ten years standing."
Mutatis mutandis, would Mr Draper, if his life were to depend on a surgical operation, be happy to leave diagnosis and treatment, not to an experienced surgeon and his colleagues, but to a committee of lawyers, assisted by a medical assessor, who should be "a pathologist, paediatrician or psychiatrist of not less than ten years standing "?
The GMC has served a useful function in the past, and will, I hope, do so again in the future. His constitution is, however, more than a hundred years out of date. Hinc Woe lacrimae.
Michael Reilly Cresswell, Hartley Avenue, Plymouth
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