farmdoc's blog post number 516

Five weeks ago I wrote of the nationwide medical registration scheme that’ll start next 1 July. And how it’ll give bureaucrats and governments licence to put their grasping fingers where those fingers don’t belong, e.g. medical undergraduate and specialist training, and continuing education. Since then I’ve learned of another area, i.e. Good Medical Practice. Oh how politicians adore standardisation. Turning doctors into clones. Sausages. One size fits all. So the Australian Medical Council [AMC] set its sights on A Code of Conduct for Doctors in Australia. It set up a committee (as they would) which took submissions from interested (i.e. not disinterested or uninterested) parties in the name of democratic consultation. Then the committee digested everything and produced a wonderfully and admirably concise Code. You can see it here. It’s a mere 41 pages. That’s right. Only 41 pages. Yeeeha! How remarkable. And how misguided. And stupid. Only 39 pages too long. Last Tuesday I wrote of societal over-regulation. The Code’s a classic example. The AMC’s endorsed it (as it would). Me? I expect the AMC will force me to pledge my undying allegiance to the Code. Or it won’t register me. And doing so, I’ll feel like a sausage? A silly sausage. I’d rather sign up to the RSPCA’s five freedoms. Which are simple and understandable. Unlike a sausage.

farmdoc's blog post number 481

I’ve been registered with the Medical Practitioners Board of Victoria since 1969. I can’t recall when I was first registered with the Medical Council of Tasmania, but I think it was in 1992. Each Australian state has its own medical registration body. So a doctor working in two or more states needs to register, and pay an annual re-registration fee, in each. A few years ago, some bureaucrat had a bright idea – that nationwide medical registration would be more efficient. Loads of people were seduced by this trumpeted efficiency. Thus a national registration scheme will start on 1 July 2010. But state medical boards will still exist, to handle complaints against doctors, among other functions. So the new regulatory machine will be bigger – and more cumbersome – than the status quo. To date, the promise has been that the annual re-registration fees won’t rise. But I’ll bet they will, because the total cost will be much higher, and governments won’t pay the extra if they can compel Muggins doctors to. In this world you get nothing for nothing, especially from bureaucrats and governments. Here their quid pro quo is the right to put their grasping fingers into the pie of medical undergraduate and specialist training, and continuing education – where their fingers don’t belong. This new juggernaut may hasten my retirement from active medical work. Time will tell.