Book Review — The Law of Medical Negligence by Dr Navin Kumar Gupta & Dr Binoy Gupta

The book views the changing interface between law and medicine. The doctors, who were once worshiped as Gods, are increasingly being looked upon as mere men serving their personal ends. Any instance of failure of treatment is attributed to negligence and carelessness on the part of the doctors. With the inclusion of doctors within the ambit of Consumer Protection Act, complaints against them are rising. Doctors now feel gullible and somewhat threatened.

While shedding light on laws regarding doctor records, acts, commissions, NMC, RMP, state councils, audits, and terms and conditions — this book also analyses the types of complaints made in the courts against different specialists, and the decisions of the courts, which as covered in paragraphs from Judgment. The aim is to learn lessons from the cases and suggest actions to forestall such unhappy occurrences.

Being the very useful asset on the subject where law and medical field intersect, written by a leading Ophthalmologist, the book is an important resource for reference for the doctors, lawyers, and the common citizen. Despite loopholes in the healthcare system, the book shows our healthcare systems can be legally complaint.

Some of the prominent coverage in the book:

· What is medical negligence?

· What precautions the doctor should take to avoid being involved in litigation?

· What records the doctor should maintain?

Law is a specialty in itself and it would be unrealistic to expect doctors to know the meanings, nuances and shades of meaning of all legal terms or, even, to know details of law as such. In general, the authors have done plenty of ground work for writing this book and have been able to make a difficult subject easy for doctors and laymen. They have obviously taken pains to include a large number of stats, insights, and variety of cases.

The book is available to buy from online stores like Amazon.