ABSTRACT
The control of the licensing power is the most important function of the medical boards. Acting on behalf of the State, it is their duty to see that all candidates for license are properly qualified. They stand as guardians of the public and the profession, and here their responsibilities are indeed great. When the general public are asked what they expect from their doctors, the usual response is that they want a doctor who is competent and who listens to them. The last few decades have seen a number of high profile cases in the UK of practitioners who have not practised to the expected standard, who have behaved unprofessionally, or without due regard to the expected ethical and compassionate standards of medical practice, or who have been downright fraudulent or criminal in their activities. Medicine has been first a guild activity and then a university subject since the Middle Ages, when the concept of ‘competence’ became an explicit virtue.
