I
retired on 14 September 2007.
I was working as a senior consultant at the time in a
large NHS hospital in Scotland. The last patient I saw was an
emergency patient who had been stabbed in the left upper quadrant of his
abdomen, the knife neatly transecting the distal part of his transverse colon. (Gotta love Scotland!)
After this problem had been managed, I walked out of the hospital into the
sunset of a beautiful early-autumnal Scottish evening, the setting sun gilding
the Pentland Hills with rose gold.
I'm not sure if the occasion of the end of a 40-year
career can be defined as a celebration, but it was a pleasure to acknowledge
the occasion that night with my lovely wife and my two best friends.
When I returned to Australia, my registration with the
New South Wales Medical Board was changed to "Limited Prescribing and
Referral", which allowed me to provide, without fee or reward, renewal of
a prescription provided by another medical practitioner, and specialist
referrals.
This was a sensible arrangement which acknowledged that an experienced retired medical practitioner was eminently suitable for the task of the emergency renewal of prescriptions to tide the patient over until his/ her usual doctor was available, or, in the same situation, the referral of a patient to an appropriately skilled specialist. (And who is better placed to assess the relative merits of available specialists than a doctor who has worked for many years with them as colleagues.)
This came to an abrupt end when the State Registration Boards were replaced by a single federal "Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency".
The Federal agency decided to end the practice of Limited Registration by means of imposing a prohibitive requirement that full Professional Indemnity Insurance would be compulsory for limited registration, a policy costing around $30,000.00 per year.
Obviously, providing referrals for a few patients (mainly relatives and friends) to expedite their specialist appointments, or repeat scripts for their chronic conditions in the situation where they were unable to visit their own general practitioner, did not merit such a grandiose expenditure, and I declined.
This was a sensible arrangement which acknowledged that an experienced retired medical practitioner was eminently suitable for the task of the emergency renewal of prescriptions to tide the patient over until his/ her usual doctor was available, or, in the same situation, the referral of a patient to an appropriately skilled specialist. (And who is better placed to assess the relative merits of available specialists than a doctor who has worked for many years with them as colleagues.)
This came to an abrupt end when the State Registration Boards were replaced by a single federal "Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency".
The Federal agency decided to end the practice of Limited Registration by means of imposing a prohibitive requirement that full Professional Indemnity Insurance would be compulsory for limited registration, a policy costing around $30,000.00 per year.
Obviously, providing referrals for a few patients (mainly relatives and friends) to expedite their specialist appointments, or repeat scripts for their chronic conditions in the situation where they were unable to visit their own general practitioner, did not merit such a grandiose expenditure, and I declined.
I subsequently received a letter from AHPRA stating that "pursuant to section 81 of the National Law" the Board proposed to refuse to renew (my) registration to practice Medicine.
I think this was the same proforma letter that they send when a practitioner has been caught doing unnecessary vaginal examinations on a patient with ear ache.
So I sent a letter back to Mr Peter Freeman, Director of Registration:
Dear Mr Freeman.
I have received your letter notifying me of refusal to renew my
registration.I looked in vain for the "thanks for coming" paragraph - something along the lines of "May I take this opportunity to personally thank you for more than 40 years of exemplary service to the people of NSW and Queensland" would have been nice.
To misquote T.S Eliot: This is the way a career ends. Not with a bang but an
officious letter.
Dr B.Clibrig M.B.,B.S.
Several years later I received a phone call from a gentleman who introduced himself as the new Director for Registration for AHPRA.
He said "May I take this opportunity to personally thank you for more than 40 exemplary service to the people of NSW and Queensland."
He explained that he had come across my letter and was phoning to apologise on behalf of his predecessor.
I nearly cried.
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