Penguin's Dissenting Diagnosis

Dr Arun Gadre and Dr Abhay Shukla have recently written a book, 'Dissenting Diagnosis', which was published by Penguin. The book exposed a range of malpractices in the medical profession, mainly in the mushrooming new swanky private hospitals, however smaller clinics and hospitals are also not devoid of such practices. The writer mention how Doctors would carry out malpractices in order to achieve the targets set by hospital management, since these hospitals and pharmaceutical companies give rewards/incentives to those doctors who achieve their sales/referral targets. The range of malpractices included, wrong diagnosis, recommending procedures (operations) not required, clinical trial drug testing on un-suspecting patients, prescription of branded drugs even when generic alternatives cheaper by 500% were available to even poor patients, unnecessary tests and diagnostics, wilful prognosis of simple ailment to life threatening one, trials on patients by trainee doctors who were not equipped to handle those cases, organ donation rackets, inflating bills etc…. the list is too long for comfort. Media reports on responses from the fraternity included that of Dr Sagar Mundada, president, Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors. Speaking to Mr. Santosh Andhale of DNA newspaper, Mr. Mundada seemed to be deflecting the blame from doctors, he said: "This …show more content…
Samiran Nundy, chairperson of the department of surgical gastroenterology and organ transplantation at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital and editor-in-chief of the journal Current Medicine Research and Practice (CMRP), had earlier stirred the hornet's nest by writing an editorial in the British Medical Journal and also in CMRP about rampant corruption in the Indian healthcare services system. Speaking to Kundan Pandey of the magazine ‘Down to Earth’, he pressed on the need for immediate intervention to check corruption in the healthcare system. He reiterated the charge often used now `Many doctors are simply