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Category: Research Articles
August 01, 1993
Alarmed by the current state of affairs, a group of concerned doctors have formed the FME to focus attention on the need for ethical norms and practices in our profession. The FME fielded a team for election to the Maharashtra Medical Council. (Dr. Kamath narrates this story in our opening ...
August 01, 1993
Some large hospitals in Bombay insist that every patient seeking investigation or treatment should undergo tests to check for Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV).
August 01, 1993
I swear by Apollo the physician, by Asclepius, by Health, by Panacea and by all the gods and goddesses, making them my witnesses, that I will carry out, according to my ability and Judgment, this oath and this indenture; to hold my teacher in this art equal to my own parents: to make him pa...
November 01, 1993
I saw a friend of mine, a consultant, earning a hundred rupees from a patient. He placed sixty rupees into the ever willing hands of the local general practitioner (G. P.) who had brought the patient to him with a diagnosis of 'chronic appendicitis'. The G. P. instructed my friend to get a ...
November 01, 1993
The title of this book by Professor James Calnan, Emeritus Professor of Plastic Surgery at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School, Hammersmith is, in itself, thought-provoking. Talking with - and not to - patients is what we should really be doing, listening to what they say (or wish to say ...
November 01, 1993
Communal riots shook Bombay in two phases, first during December, 1992 (in the aftermath of the demolition of Babari Masjid), and then in January 1993. As a surgeon working in a public hospital which absorbed a large number of casualties during the riots, I could observe distinct difference...
November 01, 1993
Bombay's mushrooming ICCUs (intensive cardiac care units) are 'death traps' for unsuspecting, critically ill patients... ICCUs are misnomers at best. They form an unchecked, unregulated, unlicensed, unauthorised and inadequately staffed medical industry that is a farce.
February 01, 1994
In the first issue of our newsletter we had referred to the ethical aspects involved in the diagnosis and management of patients with Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). We alluded to the insistence in some hospitals on subjecting every patient to tests for the presence of Human Immune-de...
February 01, 2000
All our hospitals - in the public and private sector - share a common characteristic. They function in secrecy. It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to extract any information from the authorities in charge. When the information requested pertains to complications suffered by one or more...
February 01, 2000
A relationship between a doctor and a patient is based on the principle that the patient must have autonomy in making decisions. Such autonomy has been necessitated by two factors that override the obvious expertise of the doctor. First, the decisions to be made concern the health and life of the...