Registration and disclosure
What a patient, a referring doctor and a machine find when they search your name — and the disclosure the guidelines now require on everything you post. This is documentation of fact, so almost nothing here is restricted. Most of it is simply not done.
Posts on electronic media are reported to require the practitioner’s name, qualifications, registration status and medical register number. Almost nobody is doing this today. This point appears in one of the three reports we relied on — The South First — so verify it against the notice before you rely on it. It is the only item on this page carried by a single source.
Three sources, three different versions of you
The ordinary state of a senior Indian consultant online is five to twelve records that disagree. A hospital profile with one qualification list. A directory entry with an old one. A conference bio with a title you no longer hold. A state council register entry that is correct but which nobody links to.
A patient does not notice. A referring doctor does, and so does a language model deciding whether to name you.
| What we check | What usually turns out to be true |
|---|---|
| Does your state council register entry resolve? | It exists. Nothing on your own site points to it, so nothing can verify you |
| Do your qualifications match across every source? | Two to four versions, differing in order, abbreviation and completeness |
| Is your current appointment the same everywhere? | Old affiliations persist on directories and conference sites for years |
| Is authorship attached to your published work? | Papers exist. Nothing connects them to the profile a patient reads |
| Is there structured data a machine can read? | Rarely. Physician markup is absent on most Indian hospital sites |
| Do your posts carry registration details? | Almost never, and this is now reported to be required |
The guidelines call a factual directory patient information, not promotion
A hospital website directory of doctors — names, qualifications, specialties, registration, availability — is treated as a patient-information function, not promotion.
6 October 2026 guidelines, as reported by Medical DialoguesThat sentence is the whole licence for this service. Facts about who you are, stated plainly and verifiably, are not advertising. The moment the same facts are arranged to impress rather than to inform, Regulation 6.1.1 applies.
- A factual directory entry: name, qualifications, specialty, registration, availability
- Publishing your consultation fees — expressly permitted
PhysicianandMedicalWebPagestructured data stating the same verifiable facts- A link from your profile to your council register entry
- Authorship correctly attached to work you actually published
Reg 6.1.2 treats a self-photograph on a letterhead or signboard as self-advertisement. Directory carve-out and the verifiability requirement from the 6 October guidelines, as reported.
- Arrange the same facts as a list of achievements or attainments
- Use your photograph promotionally, on a site, letterhead or signboard (Reg 6.1.2)
- Add a success rate, a patient count or years-of-experience superlative
- Describe you as senior-most, pioneer or first in India unless it is independently verifiable
- Claim a clinical review of our marketing copy that no clinician performed
What you get, and when
| Week | Deliverable |
|---|---|
| 1 | The record audit. Every public record of you we can find, listed with its errors. You get this whether or not you continue |
| 2 | The correction list. Who holds each wrong record, what to ask them to change, and the exact replacement text |
| 3 | The canonical profile. One factual profile, written once, from which every other record is corrected |
| 3 | Structured data. Physician markup with registration, qualification and affiliation, deployed on your profile page |
| 4 | The disclosure block. A standing footer for your posts carrying name, qualifications, registration status and register number |
| 4 | The take-down list. Anything already published in your name that the guidelines now prohibit |
Timeline is our standard scope for one consultant, not a measured average. Correcting records held by third parties depends on them replying, which we cannot control and will not promise.
Start with what is already there.
The record audit is the first week of this service and the first thing we do for any consultant. You keep the list either way.
- Guidelines on Ethical Advertising and Public Communication, NMC, 6 October 2026 — reports relied on are listed on the guidelines page. The disclosure requirement is carried by The South First alone and is flagged as single-sourced above
- IMC Regulations 2002, Reg 6.1.1 (publicity) and Reg 6.1.2 (photographs on letterheads and signboards) — text
- Schema.org
PhysicianandMedicalWebPage— schema.org
Not legal advice. Published 22 October 2026 · last reviewed 22 October 2026.