This page contains information about handling of specialists in case they are convicted to have committed medical misconduct, & advice to specialists

Handling of specialists convicted of medical misconduct by EAC

A specialist who is convicted of medical misconduct by the Medical Council is referred to the Education and Accreditation Committee (EAC), which presently consists of 14 members including the chairperson.  Following thorough discussion, with or without asking the doctor to present himself, the committee decides whether to retain the name of the doctor in the specialist registration, or remove the doctor from the specialist registration permanently or for a specified period of time. Removal recommendation may be suspended for a specified period of time, with or without attached CPD activities.

It is extremely difficult for a procedure oriented specialist private practitioner to continue his practice if he is removed from the specialist registrar.  The action attracts review from private hospitals to his scope of practice.  Private hospital administration has immense difficulty with such decisions, although usually senior clinician-administrators are very sympathetic to doctors.

There is a re-instatement application mechanism to doctors removed from the specialist registration.

Advice to Specialist Doctors

The society does not give room particularly to 2 types of errors, and they easily attract complaints to the Medical Council.  If an error is considered by society to be unacceptable to performance of a layman at, say secondary school completion levels, they are not considered tolerable by society.  Some examples are wrong sides, wrong counting, failure to respond to allergy alerts, retention of foreign bodies. Another type is an error with gross implication on quantity of life or severe functional preservation.  An example is failure to detect images of a cancer.    Other types of errors may leave bigger rooms for discussion and pardon.  Please note that I cannot bear any responsibility or predictive power to individual cases.  I wish that my words may allow patients to forgive errors from professionals, but reality is that I do not have that magic.

Avoidable mistakes are different from difference between careful judgments/decisions from final diagnoses.  As long as there is care in judgment and preferably good documentation, the doctor is accepted by society.

I conduct talks about error occurrence and prevention, and interested friends may attend them.  To surprise of many people, errors follow patterns and are preventable.  I know a person who did not have a single blood sample error over 30 years, no single medication error over 20 years of busiest private practice, and 10 years without a wound infection despite volumes of inpatients.

Stubborn adherence to safe protocols prevent errors very effectively.   We shall avoid factors prone to error formation such as fatigue, distraction from work, and excessive multi-tasking.  Each person has his own profile of ability and risk appetite, and one may tailor himself instead of stretching limits.

Open culture prevents errors both from individuals and system failures.  It is important to conduct frank discussion and to sound aloud alert to colleagues when error strikes.  Such approaches increase awareness to risk situations.

The airline industry promotes all ranks to give polite and frank alert to people responsible for safety.  The medical profession would gain a lot by encouraging peers, nurses and other co-workers to alert when errors occur.

Risk management before adverse outcomes, thorough informed consent processes, patient engagement during decision making, good documentation, and effective communication after adverse outcome combine to reduce chance of formal action from patients after adverse outcome.  Presently the HK Medical Council has few if any attempts to discipline a doctor without a formal complaint lodged.  Readers are advised to study references on clinical communication, and attend workshops such as those organized by MPS.

My appeal to fellow specialists is simple: we all have our honor to preserve, and we are not disposables.  We do not deserve humiliation after hard work. Please treasure and preserve our professional lives.  I am willing to give informal personal advice should hard-luck hit a friend.