Medico-legal liability is now an increasingly challenging reality. Never before in the history of the medical profession in India have we witnessed the kind of hostility and aggression against doctors as is evident today. Even as I type these lines, there are newspaper reports of ongoing violence against doctors in various parts of the country following Covid deaths. Despite supreme personal sacrifices by doctors, nurses, and other healthcare workers, at all times, strangely, the public perception of the medical profession is at its lowest.
There seems to be a serious trust deficit in the patient-doctor relationship. This situation can only be compounded by the phenomenon known as medical jousting —– something that should be consciously and scrupulously avoided. Here are a few illustrations of the nature and repercussions of medical jousting. A Gastroenterologist admitted a patient to…
