The public hearing into a complaint against a GP, Dr Ross Ardill, marked the entry of the medical profession and healthcare provision into the 21st century.

It was the first time a hearing into alleged professional misconduct by a doctor was held in public, with media and members of the public present.

For years the workings of the organisation that polices the medical profession have been kept very secret.

Hearings of the Medical Council's Fitness to Practise Committee were always held in private, with the public only hearing about verdicts through terse notices in the media.

New legislation on how the Medical Council operates now makes it easier for hearings to be held in public and for the previously secret workings of the medical regulatory system to be subject to public scrutiny for the first time.

Journalists attending the first public hearing half-expected legal representatives for the doctor or perhaps the council to argue that all or part of the hearing should be held in private.

But, to be fair to all concerned, full public scrutiny was allowed and all the proceedings were reported in detail in the media.

This was perhaps a recognition as to how things are changing.

Consumers

The public are now no longer grateful and subservient patients, but health consumers and stakeholders, with a right to know what is going on within the health service they pay for.

This growing consumerism is unlikely to tolerate any more unnecessary secrecy in the council's activities.

We may not have too much to thank Mary Harney for when she finally departs the Department of Health, but she has introduced a good deal of reforming legislation, including new laws that have changed the Medical Council.

Not only are council hearings now held in public, but a majority of the council's members are now non-medical people.

In the first public hearing, the Dr Ardill who had been accused of using inappropriate and insensitive language to a female patient was found not guilty of professional misconduct.

The council didhowever agree that the language he used was inappropriate.

It can obviously be a stressful experience for doctors to have their actions subject to such public scrutiny, especially when ultimately found not guilty of professional misconduct.

However, credit should also go to patients who take genuine complaints to the council and agree to describe and be questioned about their experience with the doctor in full public view.

This is what happened in this case.

Public Medical Council hearings can be part of a learning process that can only improve how medical professionals and our health system operates.

- Niall Hunter