Consultants
Medical Consultants are senior doctors who have completed all of his or her specialist training and have been enrolled in the Specialist Register. A medical consultant may be from a variety of streams such as doctors, nurses, or other medical specialisations. He is supposed to be quite well-informed about matters related to medicines, medical community, procedures, rules and regulations, medical facts and all the recent advancements.
A medical consultant acts as an advisor to the medical community. He provides exact solution to upcoming problems in the medical stratum to which he or she is apart. A consultant generally spearheads a team of doctors from different fields of specialisation along with their subordinates. A consultant may be given various other titles such a visiting consultant, senior consultant, director etc. depending upon the responsibilities they are supposed to undertake.
The period of training for majority of specialities have been fixed to about 9 years by a programme known as Modernising Medical Careers (MMC) for postgraduate medical training introduced in 2005. Doctors without a training certificate and retired professional are given employment on locum consultant basis. Generally a Consultant is given a contract on a long term basis. The code of ethical conduct revolves around the common values applied to medical profession.
A consultant cannot force a patient to accept his course of treatment. He ought to act in the best interest of his patient. He should not knowingly inflict any harm to the patient. He should do justice with the availability of resources vis-à-vis condition of the patients.
His colleagues, subordinates, assistants and particularly the patient have the right to dignity. He should be truthful to the patient to the extent that the latter does not get distressed. He should be truthful to the members of the medical team. This includes the code of informed consent also, wherein a person giving a concept should fully understand the fact, the treatment regime and the consequences.
Finally, a consultant is a place on the top. Therefore, in situations of ethical dilemma, he should decide the best course to follow so that moral values of the medical community and the patients do not cross swords and the conflict is amicably resolved.
Other than ethics related to medical profession, a consultant, if hired or on contract, has to adhere to the duties and responsibilities often given to him in hard copy by his employer. Being a very experienced medical professional, he may also be required to offer his services for the cause of the society and the nation such as disaster management etc.