The Tamil Nadu Medical Council, in its last meeting on May 11, took a resolution warning doctors against advertising online. The council is asking all doctors to withdraw their names from online registries, and remove any advertisements with their names, photographs, speciality and contact details, as this violates the Medical Council of India’s Code of Ethics Regulations, 2002.
“Most doctors advertise online, claiming that it is just information. Many think that is acceptable. However, this is not supposed to be done. We have decided to send warning letters to 100 doctors giving them 15 days to remove these ads, or risk facing disciplinary action,” said K. Senthil, president of TNMC.
Dr. Senthil said the council had found that many doctors paid online registries to ensure that their names appeared among the first. “So we have decided to choose the top 10 doctors across 10 specialties and send them the directive first. This is to act as a warning for all other doctors too. We are now in the process of perusing the registries online,” he said.
Since many patients use online directories to look for doctors, the TNMC decided to launch an online registry of its own on June 1, he said. “For instance, if a patient is looking for a dermatologist in Arumbakkam, they can search for it, and the names of registered doctors with their address will appear in an alphabetical order,” he said.
The Code of Ethics Regulations, 2002, states that “a physician shall not make use of him / her (or his / her name) as subject of any form or manner of advertising or publicity through any mode either alone or in conjunction with others which is of such a character as to invite attention to him or to his professional position, skill, qualification, achievements…”.
However, in cases of change of address, or changing the type of practices or resumption of another practice and in a few other cases, a medical practitioner is allowed to make a formal announcement in press, say the rules.
Websites to be monitored
“We will monitor websites, and monitoring may also be done by other doctors and members of the public who will send in complaints to us, which we can look into and decide on action,” said P. Balakrishnan, executive committee member, TNMC.
The council has a total of 1,16,000 doctors registered across the State and Puducherry, of whom about 80 per cent are estimated to be active.
Many paid online registries to ensure that their names appeared among the first
