ISO is short for International Standard of Organization. ISO 9002 (last revised in 1994) was a Model for quality assurance in production, installation, and servicing. had basically the same material as ISO 9001 but without covering the creation of new products. It was very applicable for contract manufacturing. I understand organizations now use ISO 9001 standard and ISO 002 is obsolete. It came as a surprise when one of our colleagues working in another civic institute used it on his letterhead.
One patient came to our outpatient clinic. She had been seen by this gynecologist in his private clinic and advised some operation. Her husband worked in our institute. So they came to us. One of my junior colleagues saw her and advised appropriate management. He found this gynecologist’s letterhead amongst her papers.
“Look at this, Sir” he said. The clinic was quite crowded, and there was little time to waste. But my juniors never wasted time, neither mine nor theirs, when the clinic was crowded. I looked. I found that he had written his position at that civic hospital below his name on the letterhead, and then written ISO 9002 certified.
“Sir, does one write ISO certified like this?” he asked.
“If it is your clinic or hospital, and it is ISO certified, you can write that, because it signifies a certain level of standard of the place. But if you are just attached to a place as a visiting consultant, you don’t write that, because your letterhead is for yourself, not for one place amongst many that you visit.”
“So what does it mean, Sir? Is he trying to take credit for something one of the institutes to which he goes has?” he asked.
“Looks like that” I said.
“Sir, but that is unethical!”
“I think so, too” I said. “But in the rat race of today, he may be under pressure to resort to such means to survive.”
“That is not right, Sir!”
“Well, we are not the authority to put a stop to it” I said. I can make a few more suggestions for this fellow. His institute must can a lot of equipment which is CE certified, and US FDA certified. The medicines the civic body purchases for patients are WHO GIMP certified. This fellow can write CE certified, US FDA certified and WHO GIMP certified in addition to ISO 9002 certified. It will add so much more prestige to his reputation.”
My colleague saw the sarcasm in this suggestion and smiled.
“He can even write MRCOG as one of the degrees he possesses. It is not recognized my our medical council. SO they will not object to it. The MRCOG board does not know what happens in this corner of the world, and it has no jurisdiction here anyway. So it will be all right. If anyone does take him to task, he can produce a certificate showing he is a Member of Residential Colony of Goregaon or Govandi or any place with a name starting with a G.”
