Innocent till proven guilty

Dr. Arun Bal in his editorial has made a few fundamental blunders Income tax raids and unaccounted wealth do not contravene criminal laws. At most they constitute breach of civil laws.

In India the judiciary maintains that a person is assumed to be innocent till proven guilty. Till the president of the Medical Council of India is convicted of his crimes, it is unjust to launch a frontal attack on him.

When I agree that medical councils have failed utterly in their regulatory function, so have the government bodies and the public at large.

The only saving grace as far as the regulation of medical practice — or match fixing — is the judiciary and I suppose that consumer protection can never be replaced by any medical council, however credible it may be. After all the credibility of a police enquiry is far less than that of a judicial inquiry where crimes related to police excesses are concerned. The portrayal of modern medicine as techno-savvy and yearning for the old human touch seems to be the passionate theme of modern writers on medical ethics. I wish to maintain that both are not mutually exclusive.

A practitioner of complex modern medicine with all its and technological complexities can be humane and considerate

This also does not mean that the human and considerate doctor of yesteryears could not be utterly incompetent.

Later then Buddha said, there has to be a middle path, a fusion of gently humanness and tough scientific rigour to give the best to our patients.