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Comment by logjam | Hacker News Reader

I'm a doc. I have no idea of the legality of such "contracts", but it doesn't matter - such a practice is completely unethical.

Nor is it going to help a physician when a patient makes a complaint to your medical licensing board.

If you're doing your job as a physician you aren't a "provider" to "consumers" - you are hopefully a professional working in the best interests of a patient or population of patients regardless of your own personal interests - this horseshit obviously has nothing whatsoever to do with that goal.

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This is where the medical community as a whole, including medical-licensing boards should get together and look at the long-term negetive impact of such ethically dubious practises of a few doctors.

If this goes ahead, every member of the medical community would suffer due to the taint caused by a few rotten apples.

Does complaints to medical board actually get a fair hearing? I imagine it would be a little like complaining about the police to the local sheriff.

I am not a doctor but am very much involved in health care and have worked in a major medical center for more than a decade. From what I've heard, complaints to review boards are taken very seriously.

I'm a doc from The Netherlands so can only comment on our system. Here when you file a complaint it will be sent to a local commission first. This commission consisting of doctors will look at the viability of your complaint. This commission consists of doctors working in the same field as the doctor whom possibly did something wrong but cannot have close relations to the doc being investigated. If they see a valid case they will send it to a medical court consisting of doctors (3) and legal professions (2) who will judge the case.

So if a way it is like 'complaining about the police to the local sheriff'. However all commissions consist of multiple people from different hospitals. I don't think it's a 100% fail-proof system but by having MDs look at the case first a lot of cases that will never ever lead to a penalty will be filtered out.

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