Patients must be able to trust doctors with their lives and health. To justify that trust you must show respect for human life and make sure your practice meets the standards expected of you in four domains.
Knowledge, Skills and Performance
- Provide a good standard of practice and care and work within your competence.
Patients, partnership and communication
- Listen to patients and work in partnership with them, supporting them to make informed decisions about their care.
- Protect patients’ personal information from improper disclosure.
Colleagues, culture and safety
- Work with colleagues in ways that best serve interests of patients, being willing to lead or follow as circumstances require
- Be willing to share your knowledge, skills and experiences with colleagues, whether informally or through training, mentoring or coaching.
- Treat people with respect and help to create a working and training environment that is compassionate, supportive and fair, where everyone feels safe to ask questions, talk about errors and raise concerns.
- Act promptly if you feel that patient safety or dignity may be seriously compromised.
- Take care of your own health and wellbeing needs, recognising and taking appropriate action if you may not be fit for work.
Trust and professionalism
- Act with honesty and integrity, and be open if things go wrong.
- Protect and promote the health of patients and public.
- Never unfairly discriminate against patients or colleagues.
- Never abuse patients’ trust in you or the public’s trust in your profession.
You are personally accountable for your professional practice and must always be prepared to justify your decisions and actions.
Taken from good-medical-practice-2024—english-102607294.pdf
Link to good medical practice for medical students: