First read the foregoing argument that license may have ruined medicine then click here
The idea that a license to practice medicine, to produce medicinals, or to make and sell medical equipment protects and serves the patient may explain developments which have produced the current dissatisfaction with our system of medicine and it may also account for the high cost in our system of medicine? The British Government intends to restrict patient access to medicine, but why? Who could imagine that government could better serve a personal medical need than the person with the need?
Maybe people would be better off, if governments would not regulate medical services, the production or sale of phamaceuticals, or research leading to a medical end use. Maybe governments should allow the patient to police the quality of the medicine services that were provided and the outcome realized. In that way, providers of medical services would need to account to their patients for all new developments whether they be in science and thereby adaptable to medicine or whether they be in mainstream medicine. Of course, this is not possible if government continues to permit medical providers to hide behind the shield of license and to block patient access to the medical inforamation and patient data.
How could this switch in access be accomplished? Government could enable the free and open practice of medicine by establishing for the use of the patient, standards of adequate medical service. From it, would most probably develop, a series of patient advocates who would become experts in assisting the patient in obtaining appropriate access to medical services.
Could "license to do something, like practice medicine ..." serve to inhibit citizen access to information, and serve to inhibit citizen effort to police the quality and sufficiency of the medical services that they receive? Instead of license, practioners of the medical sciences should be required to register each of the services that they are prepared to offer to the public. Each registrant should then be required to present to each patient, prior to performing any services whatsoever, a complete list of all complaints, court actions, or invesigations filed against them. Listing them in reverse date order.
In an unlicensed world, practitioners, without licenses, would be called upon to defend their actions to each of their patients, not to a licensee friendly medical board. In the past, it might have been argued that, the average patient did not have the means to obtain adequate access to sufficient informational resources to adequately obtain access to medical expertise and advise. But the internet has changed that. The internet has made it possible for all persons to learn about their personal medical needs, only government and the providers of medicine who are in privity with the information are inhibiiting patient access to real information.
The internet has imposed a mandate on government to be sure that all people everywhere have complete access to medical information and the sciences which support the medical practioner. The citizens of all nations should expect their government to provide the information; all of it, all of the time, together with the means to understand it..
The role of government should be to predefine the penalities for substandard provider treatment or for the failure of a medical service provider to adequately inform (full disclosure) one or more of his/her patients.
License, as it stands today, has proven to be for the protection of the provider. The practice of licensing has proven to be contrary to the best interests of the public at large. Licensing has not proven to be a proof of competence as stated by those who favor licensing; instead it has restricted patient access to information, raised the cost of medical services and discouraged innovation in patient/provider relationships.