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Commentary

President, Royal College of General Practitioners, 14 Princes Gate, Hyde Park, London SW7 1PU, UK; roger.neighbour@dial.pipex.com

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Harold Shipman was a murdering psychopath on an unprecedented—let us hope unique—scale. Because he was also a general practitioner, he had more than the "average" murderer’s means and opportunity to commit his crimes. Equally importantly, he was able to capitalise on the assumption of trustworthiness which society makes about its doctors. Even if the likelihood of another Shipman is vanishingly remote, it behoves everyone to cooperate in measures of risk assessment and primary prevention on a correspondingly unprecedented scale.

On the other hand, over 30 000 general practitioners do not murder their patients, do not abuse their professional position or betray their trustworthiness; they are entitled to feel hurt by any implication that they might. One can understand ordinary doctors, while not condoning the laxities that allowed Shipman to escape detection for several decades, nevertheless resenting the fall-out if it seems based on the assumption that all general practitioners are . . . [Full text of this article]