It is an open secret that most Indian doctors will give and take cuts, kickbacks, and commissions. These may either come from pharmaceutical companies for prescribing their drugs; from hospitals for filling their beds; from consultants for referrals for surgery; or from diagnostic centers, for sending patients for scans and lab tests. These have pretty much become a fact of life, and in fact doctors, who don’t take cuts and kickbacks are considered to be abnormal, because they don’t do so. After all, what the majority does becomes the norm, and lots of doctors can’t understand why any doctor would want to take such a high moral ground and refuse to accept cuts.
Lots of doctors need to justify to themselves why they take cuts. After all, it causes a lot of cognitive dissonance knowing that you are doing something which is not correct. I came across an interesting justification today.…
