In Britain, the GMC is the General Medical Council — the official body that British doctors must belong to if they want to work as doctors. It is not a union that fights for pay, and it is not a hospital. Its job is to keep a list of who is allowed to practise, to set the rules for good doctoring, and, when something goes badly wrong, to investigate. In the strongest cases it can take a doctor off the register, which means that person may no longer work as a doctor in the UK. Patients and newspapers talk about ‘reporting someone to the GMC’ when they think a doctor has been unsafe or dishonest. For a Taiwanese student, think of it as close in role to a national medical regulator, not as a club you join for fun. Though actually, the letters GMC also belong to an American truck and car brand — same letters, totally different thing. In a British news story about doctors, it is always the Council.