The AMA has redrafted its position on the role of the doctor for the first time since 2011, adding new stances on AI, patient costs and scope of practice.
For the first time, the AMA has explicitly named scope of practice and clinical governance as inherent to a doctor’s role – a new section in its most recent position statement that lands amid debate over pharmacist prescribing expansion.
“Independent access to MBS/PBS outside collaborative arrangements risks fragmented care, delayed diagnosis, and adverse medication events,” the statement reads.
The updated position statement, published 18 July, has undergone a substantial rewrite since its 2011 iteration, restructured into six subsections and 35 clauses that provide more explicit instructions than the former’s overarching guidance.
AMA vice president Associate Professor Julian Rait acknowledged while healthcare is a team effort, doctors have a unique role in coordinating safe care and in assuming responsibility for clinical decisions.
“Given the existing challenges being pushed to doctors’ roles, we thought it was very timely to remind people exactly what the competencies and skills of a medical practitioner are,” Professor Rait said.
But its core foundations, including a patient-doctor relationship built on trust and the patients’ best interests, generational mentorship among practitioners, leadership within a multidisciplinary team, and complex decision-making under uncertainty, remain unchanged.
While the role of the doctor encompasses many things, defining where one practitioner’s responsibility ends and another’s begins isn’t always straightforward, Professor Rait said.
“Guidelines cannot account for every possible contingency in one circumstance, so clinical judgement has to be applied,” he said.
What’s new?
The AMA emphasised while AI and clinical decision support can improve care, they cannot substitute clinical judgement, necessitating medical oversight of algorithms, transparency about their limitations, and robust escalation procedures when their outputs conflict with clinical evaluations.
“If AI suggests treatments A, B, or C, but the doctor knows about treatment D, which AI overlooked, it’s important for the doctor to explain the options, benefits, and risks to the patient,” Professor Rait said.
Doctors must also examine AI outputs with a “degree of scepticism” and not blindly adopt AI risk assessment tools, he said.
Stewardship language expanded considerably, calling on doctors to resist “indication creep” and defensive medicine, and to decline low-value clinical treatments and tests.
Combatting misinformation, particularly online, is now a specific duty for doctors to strengthen patients’ health literacy.
“In this age where misinformation travels faster than facts, patients need someone who’s comprehensively trained to explain what the evidence shows and what it means for them,” Professor Rait said.
However, he said this was not a role doctors should carry alone.
“It’s more incumbent upon these [social media] companies to be better regulated and be held accountable for false or misleading information,” he said.
“But equally, that’s the role of the AMA and other societies, to keep a watching brief and respond accordingly,” he said.
Cost transparency and financial stewardship were also paramount, with clause 1.8 requiring doctors to provide clear information on fees, rebates and likely out-of-pocket costs through the AMA’s Informed Financial Consent template.
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The AMA vice president told TMR that cost notifications don’t include specialist referrals.
“Trying to understand or quantify what might be involved in a patient’s care before they’re seen by a specialist is very difficult,” he said.
Doctor wellbeing, including proactive wellbeing programs, minimising administrative overload, and “zero tolerance for bullying or harassment,” also took a front seat.
While the AMA’s 2011 position statement mentioned advocating for disenfranchised patients, its 2026 rendition is more specific – advocacy now includes “speaking with and for First Nations peoples… to remove structural barriers,” the report read.
RACGP president Dr Michael Wright told TMR he welcomed the AMA’s continued emphasis on trust and the doctor-patient relationship, and its recognition of the complex care doctors provide.
“There’s been an underappreciation for the depth and range of training that we have during medical training. This document tries to call that out a bit more clearly,’ he said.
On scope-of-practice discussions, Dr Wright said doctors’ skills and experience couldn’t be “rapidly replicated” without compromising the quality and safety of care that patients deserve.
“What this document reflects is the important recognition of the partnership we have with our patients. As GPs, we work with people throughout their lives to help them understand and deal with any health issues they’ve got,” he said.
