ABSTRACT
At the heart of clinical practice lie millions of interactions between individual patients and health care professionals. The medical profession has traditionally ‘self-regulated’. This minimal amount of regulation has largely been around codes of conduct for practitioners. Many patients assume, when they receive health care from a professional, that what should be done for most common problems is known, and that the care they receive would be the same or very similar, irrespective of the practitioner or context. Most people have trouble assimilating complex, new verbal information in a short space of time, particularly if the information has direct implications for their personal lives. It is important to note that virtually all health care professionals are well motivated and do their best to provide safe, effective care, and that most succeed on most occasions.
