100-year anniversary celebration of Sri Lanka Medical Council

THE Sri Lanka Medical Council (SLMC), as the sole regulator of medical professionals in Sri Lanka, has played a vital role in shaping the nature, quality, and character of medical professionals and the medical profession for a century.

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protecting healthcare seekers by ensuring the maintenance of academic and professional standards, discipline and ethical practice by health professionals who are registered with it').

As pointed out by Justice Kodagoda, issues pertaining to medical ethics by practicing medical professionals, and the manner in which the SLMC has handled such issues in the recent past in particular, has led to increasing public concern about the SLMC. His Lordship went further and even proposed a mechanism/s to overcome such public concern with a particular reference to ethical issues resulting from the practice of medicine. He quite correctly used words such as 'neutrality' and 'representation' to a 'Complaints Secretariat', which he proposed to be instituted to handle issues on complaints against medical professionals. He even suggested that non-medical professionals should be allowed to serve on such disciplinary panels.

As of now the composition of SLMC Council is exclusively limited to doctors as far as the medical profession is concerned.

The powers that be at the SLMC and medical profession itself must reflect objectively on the core statutory function of the SLMC

Thus, whatever process is suggested within this fundamental framework, it will, as of now, ultimately result in Self-regulation of Doctors by Doctors. This is the real question which needs addressing and one hopes that the new Medical Bill, decades in the making, will address the fundamental question of 'Can the medical profession self-regulate itself or does the composition of the SLMC need fundamental reform to include non-medical personnel on its council to unbiasedly perform its statutory duty of protecting the Sri Lankan citizen from the Sri Lankan medical profession?