Medical Negligence is Unavoidable but Certainly Limits the Collaterals

Comments on: Medical negligence in India: Urgent call for comprehensive data, tort reforms, and cultural transformation to revitalize healthcare system. Recently an editorial “Medical negligence in India: Urgent call for comprehensive data, tort reforms and cultural transformation to revitalize healthcare system.” published in your reputed journal focused on medical negligence.[1] Editors described the medical negligence and their consequences with the various legal procedures in India and abroad too. In their opinion, there is a need of urgent call to revitalize the healthcare system. We also want to add some points from our side regarding the situation of medical negligence in human minds. Negligence the word itself makes a bad impression in our minds. It is different from the ignorance. Everywhere we can see the negligence but we are ignoring it due to not much significance it.[2] When the negligence word comes into the medical field, everyone wakes up, and they start opposing it without knowing the medical science or situations. The possible reason behind it is that someone’s life can be in harm due to medical negligence and cannot be resolved it later while other field negligence can be resolved later. Due to this difference other fields negligence counts as ignorance, and slight ignorance in the medical field becomes negligence.[3] Medical negligence is a gray area and in many circumstances subject to interpretation also. As most of my colleagues will agree, many times things may not be black and white in medicine. A deed done with good intentions may not always bring about the most favorable results. Also, the understanding of the evolving science is meager. The patient needs to understand that. There may be a large trust deficit even before the meeting begins between doctor and patient. There may be a large amount of circumspection towards a certain hospital or a doctor created by various sources. Even if we are not being able to help a patient, we should not knowingly cause harm.[4] To understand medical ethics and their legal hitches, forensic medicine was taught to medical students but that was not enough due to the current situations of the healthcare profession. To enhance the knowledge and training new section was required in the undergraduate (UG) syllabus. All this has thankfully been added to the UG curriculum as AETCOM (Attitude, EThics and COMmunication).[5] So that the current crop learns all these soft skills well during their medical training. This may help them to navigate the system well. One more example is how the personal rapport of a physician can help them tide over a crisis, for instance, at places where allied branches of medicine practice, we hardly hear litigation or physical violence. We conclude that negligence in the medical field not every time should be blamed. Knowing and understanding the situation before reaching any conclusion. Adding AETCOM to the UG syllabus supports medical students in developing soft skills to handle the situation and avoid medical negligence. Data availability statement There is no data in the manuscript. Author contribution NKD: Concept and Manuscript Writing, SM: Manuscript writing, revision, CRV: Manuscript revision, PP: Literature search. Financial support and sponsorship Nil. Conflicts of interest There are no conflicts of interest.