Madam, - Your Editorial of April 26th celebrating the final passage of the Medical Practitioners Bill 2007 misses the point completely. The issues relate not to the effects on doctors but on patients, whose well-being should be the prime objective of our legislators, as of press commentators.
Many doctors, myself included, have lobbied against specific failings of the Bill because of concerns that it may weaken patient protection, which is now increasingly threatened by the Government, the HSE and corporate interests. While patients find paternalism outdated among doctors the same can be said of Editorials which strike a matronising attitude.
Finally, as a doctor who has gone through a serious illness, may I point out the really central point which you missed? Knowledge is not what a patient needs from either the doctor or from the internet. All the knowledge which I carried into hospital as a patient availed me nothing. What I wanted was the advice of a wise physician. It is what I try to offer my patients.
Wisdom combines knowledge and good judgment as the basis for advice or action. It is a quality sadly missing from many areas of Irish public life. - Yours, etc,
Dr NEIL J BRENNAN, Mercy University Hospital, Cork.