Driving without a valid driver's license could be sentenced to jail. But what will happen to medical practitioners if they do not conduct operations with a license?

The natural answer is that they should never be given the chance in the first place, and that's exactly what the Medical Licensing Law stipulates.

However, a CCTV news program on Tuesday revealed this is not the case at the Peking University First Hospital, one of the capital's best medical institutions.

The report alleged that the practices of unlicensed doctors at the hospital were responsible for the death of a medical professor and two other patients. The next day, a statement from the hospital dismissed CCTV's report as groundless.

The husband of the medical professor, who died after orthopedic surgery at the hospital almost four years ago, appeared at the Beijing Higher People's Court yesterday. The Ministry of Health ordered an investigation into the case. We hope the results can help clarify some key questions in order to restore public confidence in hospitals and medical authorities.

Truth must be found out whether the postgraduate medical students at Peking University were merely shadowing a doctor or practicing on their own at the hospital. Under the law, medical students who work under the guidance of a licensed doctor to gain clinical experience are not regarded as illegal practitioners. But if the medical history of the dead patients the CCTV showed and the interview the TV station conducted at the hospital with hidden cameras are true, the hospital must be stopped from leaving the fate of patients in the hands of inexperienced and illegal practitioners.

While attacking the work ethics of CCTV for hidden camera and "misleadingly conducted" interview, the hospital admitted that the postgraduate student in question made prescriptions without doctor's guidance. But the hospital went on to say this is only a single case involving individual conduct.

We doubt if this is truly a single case at the hospital. Even if it is individual behavior, the hospital cannot shirk its responsibility. It should plug the loopholes in the administration to ensure that interns always work under the guidance of licensed doctors.

The hospital is by no means the only one that has this problem. In recent years, we have heard many cases of similar kind. It is found that some doctors do not perform their duty conscientiously. They are too busy chasing money or fame by moonlighting at other hospitals or publishing medical papers. They allegedly leave medical interns on their own to practice, which leads to accidents in some cases.

And the investigation must also find out if the medical history of these patients has been doctored by the hospital to evade legal responsibility as CCTV has reported. The hospital has the right to demand factual and unbiased report from news organizations. The hospital also has the obligation to provide true and undoctored record to prove that it is worthy of patients' trust.

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