Complaints and Disciplinary Inquiries

Complaints Against Doctors

The Nature of Medicine

Medicine is not an exact science. In medicine a given set of symptoms may for instance, indicate not one, but several possible diagnoses. There are generally accepted medical methods of attempting to arrive at the correct diagnosis and appropriate treatment. Providing a doctor has adopted an acceptable standard of medical practice, the fact that an incorrect diagnosis has been made, is not, of itself, an indication of professional misconduct. This is particularly so if the symptoms presented by the patient fit the diagnosis.

Similarly, an unsatisfactory outcome of a surgical procedure is not necessarily an indication of incompetence or negligence on the part of the doctor. Whilst there are general similarities in body structure and the way human body's system work, there are sufficient variations in these areas to cause unforeseen or unforeseeable problems in some patients even with the best of surgical or medical expertise being applied. Different methods of treatments may cause different results.