The newly-appointed members of the Medical Council have ruled out holding their Fitness to Practise Committee inquiries in public.
The inquiries are used to decide whether medical practitioners can continue practising and often involve controversial evidence.
The council has been under pressure for several years to throw the committee's inquiry hearings open to the public.
However, the new president of the council, Prof Gerard Bury, said yesterday he could not see this happening for the foreseeable future. But he said other meetings of the council might be held in public.
"We have good evidence that members of the public with complaints will be discouraged to come forward if they have to submit themselves to public scrutiny."
The council's registrar, Mr Brian Lea, said the decision to hold the inquiry hearings in public was at the discretion of the medical practitioner whose case was being considered. He said doctors in this situation were not going to be like "turkeys voting for Christmas".
Prof Bury said the Fitness to Practise hearings for July were currently being jeopardised by the failure of the Minister for Health, Mr Cowen, to appoint the remaining members of the council.
He said three lay appointments were outstanding, and if Mr Cowen did not make them soon the four to five hearings scheduled would have to be postponed.