Ethics and Professionalism Courses for Doctors in the UAE

Both physician courses are three hours long, but they are built differently and suit different moments in a career. This is how to get the most from each.

Medical Ethics for Doctors in the UAE is organised as eight teaching sections followed by key points, references and your reflective account. The first two sections set up the framework and a decision method that the rest of the course keeps using, so take them in order before dipping into the later material. A GP in a private clinic will spend most time in sections 3 to 5, where consent, refusal, confidentiality, the third-party examination rule, certificates, referral arrangements and insurance claims are tested against UAE law. Hospital specialists, particularly in intensive care, oncology, obstetrics or transplant-related work, should give section 7 proper time: it covers withholding resuscitation, reproduction, abortion, organ donation, research and telehealth, where the legal limits are narrow and differ from many other countries. Section 6 on boundaries, scope and speaking up, and section 8 on what happens when a concern becomes a complaint, round the course off.

Professional Standards for Physicians in the UAE has nine sections and reads more like a career guide than a casebook. Sections 2 and 3 are practical tools: how to keep your licence and good standing intact when you renew, move between authorities or take time out, and how to plan a CPD cycle that you could show an auditor without embarrassment. Section 4 is the one for consultants and department heads, on licence title, specialty, clinical privileges, supervision and teaching. Section 6 covers social media, advertising and conduct outside work, including your own health, and is worth reading before you agree to any media appearance or clinic marketing. Sections 8 and 9 explain how concerns about physicians are processed, the penalties and precautionary measures available, and how insight and remediation are judged, which makes this the better of the two courses for a medical director who handles concerns about other doctors.

A doctor in the UAE answers to several layers at once. Federal law applies in every emirate; your licensing authority adds its own code, standards and committees; and your facility adds policies on top. The layers rarely conflict, but they do differ in detail, so it helps to know which document says what.

The DHA's twelve standards are written for all of its licensees, so it is worth translating them into the decisions a doctor actually makes. Several of them have a direct physician angle.

Prescribing has its own line in the Code: base it on evidence and clinical need, not on incentives or a preferred manufacturer. Read the Code itself for the full wording; the table is a map, not a substitute.

Outside Dubai there is no single equivalent of the DHA Code, which can leave doctors unsure what they will be measured against. In practice the reference points are clear enough.

• Abu Dhabi, Al Ain and Al Dhafra (DOH). Conduct rests on federal law and the 2017 national Code, with DOH documents layered on top. Three matter most to physicians: the Policy on Integrity and Benefit Disclosure, which asks you to guard against even the appearance of a conflict of interest and to sign conflict-of-interest declarations; the Patient Consent Standard, in force since February 2025, which lists the procedures that need written consent and sets a substitute consent order beginning with the father; and the Healthcare Workforce Bioethics Guidelines of August 2024, developed with MOHAP and the SHA.
• Federal facilities and the Northern Emirates (MOHAP). The 2017 national Code applies, together with the duties written into Federal Law No. 5 of 2019 and the medical liability law. Doctors in Emirates Health Services hospitals are licensed by MOHAP.
• Sharjah (SHA). Since Executive Council Resolution No. 29 of 2025 the SHA has its own framework for Sharjah government and private facilities. We have not found a separate SHA code; the SHA lists the federal laws it works with.
• Dubai Healthcare City (DHCR). Dubai Law No. 16 of 2024 brings DHCC healthcare activity under DHA licences and permits, so the DHA Code is the forward reference for doctors there.

The consent order is the difference most likely to catch a doctor who moves between emirates. Dubai's consent guidelines give a married woman's husband precedence over her father, while Abu Dhabi's standard starts with the father. Both core courses work through cases that turn on this.

Every authority links renewal to continuing education, but each counts it differently. These are the published figures for physicians:

The DHA allows up to 30% of the target to be general professional development, which is where ethics and professionalism learning most naturally sits for a doctor whose specialty is clinical. The DHA Manual also states plainly that claiming CPD you did not earn leads to disciplinary action, so record only what you have completed, described accurately.

Most physicians plan CPD backwards from the renewal date and end up chasing points in the final month. A steadier approach is to plan forward from the start of each licence year, filling the parts of the target that have conditions attached before the parts that do not.

1. Fix the target for the whole licence. A DHA figure multiplies by the licence term; DOH and DHCR figures already cover two years. Write the total at the top of your plan.
2. Book the conditional share first. In Dubai that is the specialty share of at least 70%; in Abu Dhabi it is the formal (Category 1) half that must meet the DOH CPD Standard; in Dubai Healthcare City it is the half that cannot come from online courses or journal reading.
3. Know what will not count. The DHA excludes morning meetings, ward rounds, internal departmental meetings, public awareness sessions, software training, induction and orientation, and product training. The DOH does not treat companies whose main business is making, marketing or selling healthcare products as eligible CME providers, which rules out many sponsored evenings.
4. Record each activity as you finish it. Upload to Sheryan for the DHA; keep a DOH portfolio ready for audit; update the SHA CME record through its points data service. DHCR counts no more than 8 points per course per day, so a multi-day congress has a ceiling.
5. Leave time for the rest of the renewal file. Under Cabinet Resolution No. 67 of 2020 a physician applies at least one month before expiry, and the file also needs current liability insurance and, depending on the authority, a basic life support card or a surgical logbook.

Where ethics and professionalism study fits

For a clinical specialist, ethics usually falls outside the specialty share. In Dubai it belongs in the general professional development portion described above; elsewhere, treat it as learning for your own practice and appraisal unless your authority confirms otherwise. A sensible rhythm is one ethics or professionalism course in each licence cycle, timed for a change of role, a move between emirates or a new supervisory responsibility, because those are the points at which the rules you work under shift. Your licensing authority decides how any learning counts towards your CPD or a requirement it has set.

Article 24 lists acts a physician must not do, whatever the outcome for the patient. They come up in complaints more often than most doctors expect.

1. Working outside your competence or licence, except to save a life in an emergency.
2. Working without the resources the procedure needs, again except in an emergency.
3. Practising in a place that is not licensed, unless the Executive Regulations allow it.
4. Using a diagnostic or treatment method that has not been examined against medical and ethical standards, or without the health authority's permission.
5. Selling medicines or samples to patients, promoting a medicine, or steering patients to a particular pharmacy.
6. Taking a share of another provider's income, or any financial or in-kind benefit, for a referral.
7. Practising in a way that contradicts the rules of the profession.

Article 19 adds a separate limit on advertising: you may not advertise yourself directly or through an agent, and self-publicity is allowed only within the conditions the Executive Regulations set. Taking part in health education in the media is not treated as publicity, as long as it does not promote you, your facility or a branded product. Both core courses use cases built on these provisions.

These composite examples are illustrative, not real cases. Each is common in UAE practice, and each can become a complaint if handled badly.

• The sick leave certificate. A patient asks for three days off for a cold that you assess as needing one; an employer later calls asking you to backdate it. A certificate is a statement of fact you sign. The ethics course works through honest certificates; the standards course covers what the record must show.
• The examination room. A female patient attends alone and needs an abdominal examination. Under Article 5 of the medical liability law, a patient of the other sex may be examined only with their prior consent and with a third person in the room.
• The relative who signs. An elderly patient lacks capacity and her son and husband disagree about surgery. Who may consent depends on whether you practise under Dubai, Abu Dhabi or federal rules.
• The coding prompt. Billing staff suggest coding a routine review as a more complex consultation "because the insurer always pays it". The DHA Code treats upcoding as an integrity breach, and the DOH defines fraud as an intentional deception to obtain a benefit under the insurance scheme.
• The lab arrangement. A diagnostic centre offers a quarterly "marketing fee" for referrals. Article 24 of Federal Law No. 5 of 2019 prohibits it.
• The do-not-resuscitate discussion. UAE law allows resuscitation to be withheld only in tightly defined conditions, including agreement by at least three consultants that it is in the patient's interest, and not where the patient has expressly asked to be resuscitated.
• The video consultation. A patient asks for a repeat prescription by video. Prescribing before a clinical examination is prohibited except for remote services provided under the Executive Regulations, so the telehealth rules decide what is possible.

Outside a complaint, a doctor's reflective statement usually goes into a CPD portfolio, an appraisal folder or a revalidation file abroad. Its reader wants to know whether the learning changed anything. Four questions, answered in order, cover what an appraiser looks for:

1. What prompted the learning? A case, a question from a colleague, a move to a new authority or a gap you noticed.
2. What did you learn that you did not know before? One or two specific points, not a list of the course contents.
3. What will you do differently, starting when?
4. How will you or anyone else know it has happened?

An illustrative excerpt

A made-up example for illustration only. An orthopaedic specialist who took the professional standards course before joining a new hospital in Abu Dhabi might write:

The entry is short, names the lesson, describes a decision rather than a feeling and gives a step someone else can confirm.

Mistakes that make a portfolio entry weak

• Summarising the course. The certificate already says what you studied.
• Copying the learning objectives as if they were your own conclusions.
• Writing identical reflections for every course in a year, which an auditor will notice.
• Describing points or credits that the course does not carry. Record the CPD hours shown on the certificate and nothing more.
• Including identifiable patient details, which turns a learning record into a confidentiality problem.

A concern about a doctor can travel down two tracks at once. One asks whether there was a medical error; the other asks whether the doctor broke the law, a code or a licence condition.

• Medical error. Under the medical liability law, an error arises from ignorance of what a practitioner of your grade and specialty should know, not following professional standards, lack of due diligence, or negligence. Your own grade and specialty is the benchmark.
• Gross medical error. Cabinet Resolution No. 40 of 2019 lists the criteria, from practising under the influence of alcohol or drugs to deliberately working beyond your privileges. A finding of gross error requires two-thirds of the committee members present to agree, and only that finding opens the door to criminal penalties.
• Discipline. Under Article 28 of Federal Law No. 5 of 2019 the health authority can impose a written notice or warning, a fine of AED 1,000 to AED 1,000,000, suspension of up to one year or revocation, after hearing you. A grievance against a penalty must be filed within 15 days of notification (Art. 29). In Dubai, the Medical Practices Committee can also require training, supervised practice and reassessment.
• Insurance. No one may practise without insurance against civil liability for medical errors, and the facility owner pays for it.

Medical Liability and Medical Error Under UAE Law covers this in depth. The two core courses explain enough of it for you to understand why consent, records and scope carry so much weight.

If a patient has complained, your facility has opened a review or a licensing authority has written to you, an ethics course on its own is rarely the right first step. Start with the remediation courses for doctors, which set out a remediation path built around the concern you face, beginning with Facing a Licensing Investigation: The Core Remediation Course and Responding to a Complaint or Licensing Inquiry.

The core ethics and professionalism courses then become useful as targeted learning on the standard that was in question, for example consent or certificates, with a written reflection on what you will do differently. Before you reply to any authority, speak to your medical liability insurer or a UAE lawyer, and note every deadline: a Medical Liability Committee report can be challenged only within 30 days of notification. If an authority has ordered specific training, only that authority can say whether a course meets the order. For the process itself, read our guide to complaints and licensing investigations in the UAE.

Consent and confidentiality disputes are among the most common reasons doctors end up explaining themselves. These courses go further than the core courses on capacity, minors, substitute consent orders, health information exchanges such as NABIDH and Malaffi, and honest communication after harm.

Records, claims and promotion are where integrity is easiest to audit, which is why they feature so often in disciplinary findings. Add one of these if your work involves heavy documentation, insurance-funded care or a clinic with an active social media presence.

For doctors who prescribe controlled or semi-controlled medicines, lead teams or work in higher-risk specialties, these courses cover electronic prescribing rules, safety systems and the full medical liability framework.

• General practitioners and family physicians in private clinics: start with the ethics course for certificates, consent and conflicts of interest, then add Insurance Billing and Financial Integrity.
• Specialists and consultants in hospitals: the standards course for privileges, supervision and team conduct; the ethics course for end-of-life and consent decisions.
• Doctors newly licensed in the UAE: both courses, because they show where local law departs from the systems you trained in, such as the third-party rule for examinations and written consent requirements.
• Doctors moving between emirates: the ethics course, for the differences in substitute consent and authority standards.
• Medical directors and clinical leads: the standards course, for supervision, delegation and how concerns are handled.
• Doctors who have had feedback, a warning or a complaint: the remediation courses for doctors first, then the core course that matches the standard in question.

Each course runs online at your own pace on a laptop, tablet or phone, with 12 months' access. Lessons use UAE physician cases, short knowledge checks and reflection prompts. You finish with a 20-question scenario assessment and need 16 correct answers (80%) to pass. You then download a certificate of completion showing the course title, CPD hours and date, and complete a structured reflective account for your portfolio.

If you add a third course to your cart, AED 120 comes off the total. Browse the full course catalogue or compare professions on the ethics and professionalism courses page.