The Australian Medical Association (AMA) says the Jayant Patel legal case has the potential to undermine confidence in doctors and surgeons around the country and cause a backlash against those trained overseas.

Doctors working in rural areas say the case will also make it harder to attract much-needed overseas-trained doctors to remote regions.

Patel has been sentenced to seven years in jail for the manslaughter of three patients at Bundaberg's Base Hospital in southern Queensland between 2003 and 2005 and the grievous bodily harm of a fourth man.

Whether it has set a legal precedent or simply injected a sense of fear, the case has unsettled doctors working in hospitals around the country.

Steve Hambleton, federal vice president of the AMA and former president of the Queensland AMA between 2005 and 2006, says Patel's conviction shows health systems should "look after our doctors better".

"[It's] very tragic that a medical practitioner should come before the courts and be charged with criminal offences and then sentenced - that of itself throws a cloud over the system that allowed this to happen," he said.

"There are multiple levels that should have detected problems in this case and didn't and so it's really a system failure as well as an individual failure."

But Dr Hambleton does not think the Patel case means doctors will now second guess the advice they give patients.

"This case has been so far out of left field that it's not part of the routine practice that we see in this country," he said.

"This has only happened once in 100 years and if 100 years go before it happens again, we would say that most doctors who are well trained, who are making decisions, weighing up the pros and cons on behalf of their patients, and making decisions on behalf of their patients don't need to change their practice.

"They're well trained and they should trust their decisions, keep their patients fully informed and refer to other doctors when appropriate."

Foreign doctor 'backlash'

President of the Australian Doctors Trained Overseas Association, Dr Viney Joshi, fears a renewed backlash against foreign-trained doctors who make up about half of all doctors in rural and remote hospitals.

"[The Patel case] is not a pleasant thing - it brings back painful memories for people and I mean there is a possibility that some people may behave differently," he said.

"I hope that there is no backlash but last time there was a reaction, there were quite a few overseas-trained doctors who were sort of openly abused in certain places.

"A lot of overseas-trained doctors in Bundaberg who were practising in the Bundaberg area copped a fair bit of flak and for no fault of theirs."

But Dr Joshi says patients in rural and remote areas are generally tolerant.

"The rural and remote communities are a lot more... friendlier, fairer and grateful for the services that are provided to them," he said.

Rural Doctors Association of Queensland president Dan Halliday says more stringent checks on foreign-trained doctors also make it harder to recruit and retain doctors and specialists.

"We've actually seen some doctors who have been lined up to come and work in areas of shortage in rural Queensland actively turned away from practising due to the lengthy time frame associated with the registration and vetting process which is now in place," he said.

"Admittedly, processes had to improve and those processes that were in place by Queensland Health at the time were systemic and obviously inadequate and we hope that those are improving.

"However, we do see that there are quite a number of processes in place which may delay the registration of overseas-trained doctors who want to work in rural areas."

Dr Halliday says time will tell whether the checks in place are the right ones.