FM10.{4-5,28} | Code of Medical Ethics & Professional Misconduct — Summary & Reflection

KEY TAKEAWAYS

The NMC Code of Medical Ethics Regulations 2002, operative under the NMC Act 2020, is the primary regulatory standard for professional conduct of Indian medical practitioners. It establishes positive duties (informed consent, confidentiality, competence, emergency care, referral) and specific prohibitions. Key prohibited practices include: advertising and canvassing (commercial self-promotion and patient solicitation); dichotomy (fee-splitting — receiving or paying commissions for referrals, a serious conflict of interest); covering unqualified practitioners; and issuing false certificates. When a breach occurs, the disciplinary mechanism proceeds from complaint → Disciplinary Committee investigation → hearing → outcome, which may be acquittal, a warning notice (formal record, registration retained), or penal erasure (removal from the register — the practitioner may not practise; restoration requires application). Warning notice and penal erasure are distinct and must not be conflated. Every registered practitioner bears responsibility not only for their own compliance but for recognising and appropriately responding to ethical violations in their professional environment.

REFLECT

Consider the following scenario: You are a junior doctor in a private hospital. You observe that the hospital administration has an undisclosed arrangement with a diagnostic centre — all inpatients automatically have tests ordered at this centre, and the hospital receives a percentage of the fees. Individual doctors are not directly paid but the arrangement benefits the institution that employs them. Is this dichotomy? Does it apply to you as an employee doctor? What is your professional obligation — to the Code, to the hospital, to the patient? How would you navigate this situation in practice, given that speaking out might risk your employment? Use the four principles from me2 (autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence, justice) to structure your analysis.