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Category: Editorials
October 01, 1998
What role does the ethical physician play in promoting human rights? Are physicians equipped for this job? Some may feel this topic is too abstract, far from the life of the average doctor. However, ethical medical practice is based on the understanding that all people – medical professionals and...
July 01, 1998
Every time health workers go on strike, a battle is waged not only between strikers and their managements, but also between the right to strike and the ethics of not doing so. The latter battle appears to be important, for it raises some controversial issues.
April 01, 1998
Members of the medical profession possess expert knowledge that can benefit society. They are, thus, duty-bound to do all they can to educate the general public on matters pertaining to health and the prevention and treatment of disease.
October 01, 1997
The essay by Dr Bhatt on the need for private coaching classes for medical students, published in the previous issue of this journal, was probably intended to provoke debate or, simply, to provoke.
January 01, 1998
Attending a national medical conference last year, after a long gap, I was taken aback by the magnitude of the pharmaceutical industry’s presence in the conference’s every small activity and event. Industry advertising seems to have scaled new heights.
July 01, 1997
A patient died in a reputed private allopathic hospital in Mumbai due to a wrong blood type administered during transfusion by an homeopathic doctor. This death led to a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) being filed in the Bombay High Court raising issues with regard to the quality of care provide...
April 01, 1997
In the section entitled Vox Populi in this issue we have reproduced seven extracts from news items entitled 'The first Indian porcine xenotransplant'. This episode raises vital issues.
January 01, 1997
Few issues in medical ethics have interested the layperson as much as the topic of euthanasia. Not only do medical journals frequently contain articles on it, but even the general public has access to material on the subject. The Karen Ann Quinlan case introduced the topic to the Western world ab...
October 01, 1996
Market place medical practice, the sacred mantra of the medical profession in India, has caused a baffling situation once again. The Supreme Court has asserted that practising medicine in violation of the law constitutes negligence per se. Cross practice 'where a homeopath or an ayurved use...
April 01, 1996
Medical ethics require doctors to attend to their patients with sincerity, honesty, diligence and care. They do not, by any stretch of imagination, include aiding and abetting the wrongdoer. Of late we are witness to a series of examples wherein medical doctors stoop to fraud to help prominent, p...