SML’s Grey Areas newsletter has been in publication since July 1992 and discusses the latest developments in professional regulation. New issues are published monthly – subscribe below to learn more about recent studies, case law and legislative updates in the regulatory world. Explore our catalogue below.
Issues published before 2020 can be found on CanLII.
Articulating the public interest served by regulators of professions has always been a challenge. An article by a sociology professor explains that part of the reason for this difficulty is that the concept has evolved over time and, to some extent, place. See: Adams, T. L. (2016). Professional Self-Regulation and the Public Interest in Canada. Professions and Professionalism, 6(3).
A hospital in Australia recently expressed concern that it was not notified that a physician was under investigation by their regulator for conducting unnecessary gynaecological surgeries. The Executive Director of the hospital said that the lack of warning placed the public at risk. Ironically, the law in Australia was recently amended, not without some controversy, to permit the Australian Health
Research has been published in the UK on the impact of the complaints and discipline process on public participants (e.g., complainants and witnesses): Witness to Harm-Holding to Account. Improving patient, family and colleague experiences of Fitness to Practise proceedings: a mixed-methods study. The research is related to recent work by others (e.g., Grey Areas, November 2025) and reinforces recommendations by
The groundbreaking 1991 Final Report of the Task Force on Sexual Abuse of Patients transformed the regulatory approach to sexual behaviour towards patients. Instead of viewing it merely as sexual misconduct, it was now treated as a fundamental breach of trust exercised through the exploitation of an inherent power imbalance. Several resulting legislative provisions in the Regulated Health Professions Act
While many Canadian discipline tribunals have rules of procedure, few publish guidelines on how they make substantive decisions. Such guidelines are common in the UK, with those for the medical tribunal being quite comprehensive.
While regulators sometimes must deal with frivolous and vexatious complaints, the opposite is also true: meritorious and important complaints sometimes do not get filed. The UK’s oversight body, the Professional Standards Authority (PSA), has published a research report that analyzes this issue: Barriers and enablers to making a complaint to a health or social care professional regulator: a qualitative study.