Description

By Terence Stephenson

The General Medical Council (GMC) is now doing more than ever to intervene earlier so that only those cases that really need to go to fitness to practice investigationsactually go there. Putting aside our work with medical schools and employers, the GMC’s core standards – Good Medical Practice(GMC, 2014) and accompanying explanatory guidance – are the bedrock of how we both protect patients and support doctors by clearly setting out what is expected of doctors in any given set of circumstances. Any doctor who follows this guidance has nothing to fear from the GMC.
Recent court proceedings, notably the hearings involving Waney Squier and her testimony in so-called ‘shaken baby syndrome’ cases, highlighted a number of important issues around the role of expert witnesses. Some reporting about these matters sought to characterise her fitness to practise case as concerned with the issue of whether the evidence she gave on the controversial topic of shaken baby syndrome was, or was not, ‘correct’. This was not the case: instead, the fitness to practise proceedings focused only on the way she gave expert evidence and her failure to fulfil her duties to the court and to meet the standards expected of an expert witness in a number of court cases.

page: 166 – 168
Prometheus: Critical Studies in Innovation Volume 35, Issue 5
SKU: 350509