Vol , Issue Date of Publication: March 30, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.20529/IJME.2026.020

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From solidarity to isolation: Why do doctors distance themselves from colleagues accused of an offence?

Sadananda Bolar Naik
Abstract:

A doctor in Madhya Pradesh was arrested when several children died, after consuming a toxin-contaminated cough syrup he had prescribed. The Indian Medical Association condemned the arrest, stating that the prescribing doctor could not have known about the contamination [1]. Social media posts poured in from all quarters, including doctors, condemning the government for making the doctor a scapegoat to cover up their own inefficiency. But, when the police report filed in court, — opposing the doctor’s bail application — charged him with taking a 10% commission from the manufacturer, the attitude of the doctors changed completely [2]. The medical fraternity disowned him overnight and declared him guilty before he was even tried on the charges. Imagine that he had been a politician or an individual belonging to an organisation. There would have been a plethora of statements like, “He is a victim of political vendetta”, “We shall fight it to the end”, and “We have full faith in the judiciary” … etc. This incident gives us an insight into the attitude of doctors as a group, which makes them take the moral high ground and judge their own colleague as an offender long before the person has been tried, rather than lend him support.


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©Indian Journal of Medical Ethics 2026: Open Access and Distributed under the Creative Commons license ( CC BY-NC-ND 4.0),
which permits only non-commercial and non-modified sharing in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.

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