Doctor-murderers are rare, but there is a lesson to learn

The scale of Harold Shipman's crimes is so great that it enters the zone of myth. The obscurity of his motive only adds to the power of the story. Paradoxically, the very uniqueness of his case provides some assurance that something similar will never happen again.

In any case, many simple reforms to the procedures for recording deaths and carrying out post-mortem examinations have already been made. The single-handed doctor's practice will become a thing of the past. Above all, the awareness of the possibility of such killings is an inoculation against another such unusual individual going undetected for anything like so long.

It might be thought, therefore, that the implications of the Shipman case, awful as they are for the 260 families concerned, are limited for the rest of us. So they are, and we should be grateful for that.

However, there is a wider lesson, which is that it is absolutely right to be sceptical of professionals. If more of Dr Shipman's victims or their families had asked more challenging questions about his diagnoses and treatments, he might have been stopped earlier.

This is a principle which extends well beyond medicine. Parents ought to question what their children's teachers are doing; no one should simply accept what their lawyer, accountant or council official tells them.

Attitudes among professionals themselves have changed in recent decades, but there is still a long way to go. Too many doctors, for example, resent patients who look up drugs and treatments on the internet.

In some ways, the erosion of deference is a bad thing, but it does not have to mean rudeness and incivility. The rise of proper scepticism, the growth of confidence and the increasing willingness to take responsibility for decisions about our lives – these are all good things and ought to transform the relationship between professionals and their clients.

After the horror of this case, no one should feel embarrassed to ask for information or for a second opinion. And no professional should take offence when consumers assert their rights.