Advice centre

Both legislation and the GMC’s guidance emphasise that doctors should presume that adults have the capacity to consent to or refuse a proposed treatment unless it can be established that they lack that capacity.

Here we look at some of the characteristics commonly associated with a professional person; as a doctor, these are perhaps the minimum expectations patients have of you.

Dr Hajra Siraj, GP registrar in London, shares a tricky case around assessing the competence of young people.

As a collective whole, doctors are regarded as “professionals” both by the public and by their peers. They remain the most trusted profession among the public, which has been the case for many years. Individually, some doctors may fall short of the mark. But what do we mean by professionalism? And how much bearing does this definition have on the behaviours expected of a doctor? Firstly, we need to be clear about exactly what a profession is.

It is one of the great ironies that healthcare professionals are, generally, poor at taking care of their own health. Yet it is one of the core set of guidelines in Good Medical Practice that you have a responsibility to look after your health - if not for your own sake, then at least for your patients.

Honesty and integrity are central to probity and define how any professional person should act: being upstanding and law-abiding, and respectful of the trust placed in you by others.