TBV IN OUTLINE

‘Danger from within our own circles’, this is the title of a contribution to this TBV issue by lawyer Pascal Willems. The fact that occupational health and safety services employ physicians that have not completed occupational physician training, could lead to undesirable situations. Occupational physicians can delegate their tasks, but turn out not always to be able to control the quality of care – or is it a service? – at a distance. The occupational health and safety service in question cunningly managed to conceal the missing occupational physician registration. The service communicates the following: Mister X. is indeed entitled to act as an occupational physician through the spoken and the written word and he is definitely listed in the BIG register (the health care professionals register), which is open to public consultation via the internet. An occupational physician who had to account to a regional disciplinary tribunal for providing insufficient supervision, got away with it. Excuse: excessive work pressure. Lawyer Pascal Willems calls on the NVAB to specify even more clearly the difference between occupational physicians and physicians working for an occupational health and safety service. In any case the NVAB will have to work harder to protect the position of occupational physicians. …