Teaching and Learning Guide for: Regulating the Medical Profession: From Club Governance to Stakeholder Regulation

Abstract

The regulation of the medical profession is an important topic of concern for health and social policy analysts as well as social scientists who possess an academic interest in medical autonomy, institutionalized medical power and contemporary shifts in the governance and performance management of professional forms of expertise. The last three decades have seen substantial changes in how medical work is quality assured to protect the public from medical malpractice and underperforming doctors. Medical practitioners have become increasingly subject to formal peer review mechanisms and third party managerial surveillance and performance appraisal. Bound up with this have been moves toward including lay people as well as other health and social care professionals in the regulation of the medical profession and quality assurance of medical work. This shift has been said to signify a move toward a stakeholder model of medical regulation.