Assoc Prof John Gullotta on ABC Radio World Today - ACCC ruling: Medicines Australia to make public the cost of any food, drink or accommodation it provides to doctors.
REPORTER: Associate Professor John Gullotta is the Chairman of the Therapeutics Committee of the Australian Medical Association. He says the ruling is unnecessary, and is concerned about the privacy implications for some small town doctors.
JOHN GULLOTTA: Well if, for example, in a small country town, some doctors were at a meeting at a certain time and there's only one or two doctors, - even though the names aren't mentioned - it would be on the Internet and would be public knowledge. It's a very small risk, but there's a potential there as well.
But, I think the important thing is really that we have to put a little bit more onus, a little bit more trust in the profession. This is a level of detail which, as far as I know, is not in other professions, or at any level of government.
Really we should be putting more value in the professionalism of our medical profession. And if people have got a problem they have got recourse to put complaints in through the Medicines Australia Code of Conduct Committee.
REPORTER: The idea of someone going to continuing education is surely a good thing. Why would any doctor care if one of their patients knows that they've been going out and actually learning about new medications?
JOHN GULLOTTA: I don't think it would be a problem. I think most doctors go to functions to learn. I think it would be a tragedy if this level of red tape and bureaucracy would stop continuing education.
We have to ensure that the continuing education is at a venue commensurate to the standard that a doctor would normally go at. We don't want to be extravagant. We don't want entertainment or other things; that is already in the code.
ELEANOR HALL: That's Associate Professor John Gullotta from the Australian Medical Association, ending Timothy McDonald's report.
Ends