Stephen Bolsin provides us with a timely opportunity to question and review the role of organised medicine in self-regulating professional standards. His paper stands in stark contrast to recent applications by two organisations representing surgeons and consultant specialists to become registered trade unions (Foley, 2001). While those applications represent only a minority of the medical profession (and are largely designed as vehicles to campaign against efforts to eliminate unexpected bills for private patients and in an effort to combat the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission), they raise obvious questions about the future of organised medicine and its status as a ‘profession’.