Sir, - In a rather striking way your account of the censuring and admonishing of Prof Ivor Browne (January 11th) was itself a proof of what it was seeking to disprove. Let me try to explain.
The central point is that normally professional disciplinary tribunals, like the Medical Fitness to Practice Committee, sit in private. A moment's reflection will show why this is so. It is to protect not only the privacy of the practitioners but, even more, that of the patients. (No one surely would suggest that if one patient - say Father Cleary - had behaved badly, the medical disciplinary procedure would be a suitable way of "outing" him.)
There may, however, be an exception to this, where the circumstances are appropriate, under the European Convention of Human Rights or the Irish Constitution. It is not stated in your account that Prof Browne claimed before committee that the circumstances were such that a public hearing should be permitted. And anyone can see that, in the circumstances of the present case such a plea would probably have failed, for the very reason that if it were granted, the information about Father Cleary given to Prof Browne in the context of the doctor patient relationship, would have been made public. And it is just this sort of information which it is the object of the rule regarding confidentiality to protect.
The Fitness to Practice Committee is not something which has escaped from Kafka. It is made up of one lay person and four doctors. The four doctors are relevant in regard to the fact that it is claimed (in a short unimary article of a lengthy transcript) that one of the expert witnesses did not absolutely support the decision reached by the committee.
But this is not significant in the way that it would be in the context of a court just because four of the five members of the Committee - are doctors and so in a position to be aware of contemporary, practical medical ethics. Moreover, it is well known that doctors do not go out of their way to judge their professional brothers too hardly. It might be said that: "Doctor doesn't eat doctor."
In this instance, Prof Browne claimed that he was entitled to break the confidentiality of the doctor/patient relationship in the interest of another patient. The committee went so far as to accept this but held that Prof Browne had not made "the minimum possible disclosure". As a result, they "admonished" him. This is hardly the stuff of which martyrs are made.
It may be thought that this last gibe misses the point, which is that "the principle of the thing" is at stake here. But surely the principle of the thing is to maintain the confidentiality of the doctor/ patient relationship, a precept as old as the medical profession itself; yet which in the modern world, with its emphasis on individual patients' rights is more important than ever. - Yours, etc.,
2 Upper Woodlands,
Tower,
Blarney,
Co. Cork.