Official assessments of a doctor's professionalism should be considered carefully before being accepted due to the tendency for some doctors to receive lower scores than others, and the tendency of some groups of patient or colleague assessors to provide lower scores.

LONDON, July 7, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- The General Medical Council (GMC) is still consulting on its planned introduction of medical revalidation in 2012.

General Medical Council (GMC) decisions about doctors who qualified outside the UK are more likely to have far reaching consequences (high impact decisions), finds research published on bmj.com today.

Professor Chris Isles from the Dumfries and Galloway Royal Infirmary in Scotland recounts his frustrating hunt to fill his medical staff rota using locums, leading him to some critical conclusions about the poorly regulated locum sector in the UK.

The doctor who claimed there were links between vaccination and autism, which was widely discredited, was struck off Britain's medical register on Monday for professional misconduct.