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Abstract
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BACKGROUND: Medical fitness to drive is one way governments control the issuing and renewal of driving licences and some jurisdictions demand mandatory reporting of unsafe drivers by doctors.
AIM: We wished to determine the views, adherence rate and experiences of sleep physicians and electro-physicians with regard to South Australia's mandatory reporting law.
METHODS: Self-administered surveys were delivered by post and e-mail to all South Australian Medical Board registered sleep physicians (n=49) and electro-physicians (n=11). Twenty nine sleep physicians and six electro-physicians returned surveys giving a 61% response rate.
RESULTS: Eight doctors agreed with mandatory reporting, 19 thought reporting should be voluntary and six that doctors should never report. Four doctors had reported all reportable patients, five had never reported any and the rest inconsistently applied the law. Mandatory reporting affected doctors' relationships with their patients as follows: 28 had experienced abuse by patients; 25 suspected patients of doctor shopping; and 33 suspected patients of withholding information fearing loss of licence. Only eight thought they were the most appropriate person to determine their patient's fitness to drive. Twenty nine had not received any training with regard to making such determinations, yet, of these, 27 desired training.
CONCLUSIONS: Widely disliked and causing deterioration of doctor-patient relationships, the mandatory reporting law is ignored by some and inconsistently applied by most of the doctors surveyed. Further clinician and community education is required regardless of whether the law is abandoned, modified or left unchanged.
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Language: en |