BY DR. JOSE MA. EDUARDO P. DACUDAO
5. QUESTIONS must be asked: Are these lectures going to significantly increase a doctor’s knowledge? In my opinion, no it won’t. Anyone can learn the same stuff easily in the internet. Almost all important scientific papers are just a few clicks away in one’s computer keyboard. Will it significantly improve patient care and save lives? No it won’t in a third world country like the Philippines and its fourth world provinces. In such places, most unnecessary deaths are caused by the lack of finances among the poor.
The solution to this problem is developing a better economy for the poor, not stripping the doctors that work among them of their licenses, just because said doctors have not gained enough CPD points. What then is the real purpose of forcing these lectures? Just another plunge into more exclusivity and bureaucracy and central control.
In the Greco-Roman civilization where the modern physician’s profession had most of its origins, only a few professionals were allowed to wear the color purple. Magistrates, priests, and doctors. These were considered noble professions that would last for the person’s lifetime. Once a doctor, you are a doctor forever. Your knowledge, skills and abilities, that essentially makes you a doctor, don’t just disappear. However, the requirement of CPD units (which by the way definitely does not make the knowledge, skills and abilities that defines a doctor) actualizes the idea that if a doctor does not attend a lecture, he or she stops being a doctor. Certainly, Hippocrates, Galen, and the historical physicians that founded the profession would have seen this ruling as a galling aberration and anathema.
Furthermore, the following is an important point. If the above problem is true of doctors, what about teachers and other professionals? For teachers, it could be catastrophic to their pockets and physical and mental well-being if CPD is strictly implemented. Imagine all the thousands of teachers in far-flung rural areas, where transport is hard to come by. Anxious and under psychological tension for their license renewal, forced to leave their routine daily activities and normal setting, they have to travel to the cities and town centers at great cost (from their hard-earned salaries) and effort.
Moreover, such laws would be a violation of every citizen’s Constitutional right to due process. Suspending a professional from the practice of his or her profession (which is what denying license renewal amounts to) legally can be done only for serious crimes. Yet we now have the scenario in which professionals in effect can be suspended from practicing their professions because they cannot or choose not to attend conferences and lectures.
The CPD should be repealed by the Legislature or declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court or neutralized by the Presidency through appropriate decrees. Attending lectures for updating knowledge and skills should be voluntary, and the professional must have the choice to attend which of these best benefits him or her./PN
