Why doctors need to be careful with social media

In Why doctors needs to be careful with social media Nerys Williams briefly explores guidance for doctors on their use of social media, including advice from the General Medical Council (GMC), British Medical Association (BMA), and the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP).

Governance system of the British Medical Association

It is regrettable that in recent years, the Korean Medical Association (KMA) has held special meetings of the house of delegates almost annually, purely for the removal of the president of the KMA from his/her office. There could be several reasons for this, but the failure of communication caused by the fragmentation of the KMA’s governance structure may be a major contributing factor. It may therefore be helpful to benchmark the governance of other professional organizations like the British Medical Association (BMA) to identify differences in the practice of consensus building, which leads to policy making. Due to the unexpected COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) outbreak, this study was limited to internet resources. It was impossible for the author to conduct participant observation or direct face-toface interviews to get essential information about the governance of the BMA. Nevertheless, the findings provide valuable lessons for the KMA. There seem to be chasms among the house of delegates, the regional association and the board of directors in the KMA; better integration among major bodies within the KMA is required. Furthemore, the time spent by these bodies on generating policies and strategies is not sufficient. The BMA is a union with its professional activities secured by labor laws, whereas major players of the KMA do not have a protected time for their professional trade association. The KMA needs to remodel the current governance which is characterized by inadequate communication and subsequent fragmentation among the acting bodies of the Association. Continuous professional development for the leaders and members of the KMA might enable this change in governance.

How to conduct an effective patient handover

Within a busy veterinary practice, it can feel at times as if there is simply no time to stop. There is always a set of test results ready, medication to be administered, clients to call and so on. However, taking the time to properly hand over details of your patients to the next staff member is vital in providing continuity of care. British Medical Association (BMA) et al (2005) suggested that handover of care is one of the most perilous procedures in healthcare; when carried out improperly this can be considered a major contributory factor to subsequent error and harm to patients. There is also the human cost to consider: the distress, anxiety and loss of confidence that poor handovers can lead to for clients and for staff. It is therefore essential that all personnel involved in patient handovers understand the most effective methods and are aware of what information to prioritise.

Machinations of the British Medical Association: Excluding Refugee Doctors from Queensland’s Medical Profession, 1937–1942

When medical practitioners fled from the Nazi regime in the 1930s, the British Medical Association (hereafter BMA), the representative body of the medical profession in the British Empire, agitated strenuously to prevent ‘refugee doctors’, as they were described, from practising medicine throughout the Empire. Prominent BMA representatives pursued this agenda in Australia through their appointment to statutory state-based authorities that registered and regulated doctors'. This article investigates how, between 1937 and 1942, they sought to use those bodies’ registration and disciplinary powers in Queensland to exclude refugee doctors. They were particularly persistent in this state given its government's resistance to BMA pressure to pass legislation restricting refugee doctors’ eligibility for registration. In so doing, the article contributes new perspectives to scholarship that analyses the BMA’s effectiveness as a pressure group. This article’s exploration of motives for the BMA’s animosity towards refugee doctors also builds on histories of the medical profession and of ethnicity within it.