Regulating doctors - Strong medicine for sick system

ARCHAIC, dysfunctional and legally confrontational. Those damning terms come from Medical Council president Dr John Hillery who used them at a conference yesterday to describe the unworkable system for regulating doctors in Ireland.

Following the scathing report on the activities of rogue obstetrician Dr Michael Neary at Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda, the conference on competence assurance for doctors could not be more timely. As Dr Hillery succinctly put it, the medical profession in this country is at a watershed.

In a dramatic twist, the attitudes and policies of the profession are under the microscope in a root and branch examination of how the system works and especially how it relates to patients.