On 8 June 2005, Professor Mike Pringle gave the 2005 John Fry Fellowship Lecture, organised by the Nuffield Trust in London. He called it ‘Revalidation of doctors: the credibility challenge’. The audience was, in sections, invited and alert, great and good, knighted and elevated, yet some were fidgety and irritated. At the end, we were all stunned in part, taken aback at times, but on the whole...

It is now clear that revalidation and clinical governance will drive continuing professional development in medicine in the United Kingdom. 2 Thus patients, society, and the profession are to be assured that individual doctors not only are fit to practise but are providing high quality care for patients. The focus of professional revalidation is rightly moving from the requirement that practiti...