Knowledge, Understanding and Handling of Medicolegal Issues among Different Cadres of Allopathic Practitioners in a Tertiary Care Hospital of Tamil Nadu

Abstract

Increasing literacy rate, the social exchange of information on various forums, and online readily available data have raised awareness about patients' rights among the public, resulting in more legal suits being registered against the medical fraternity. Nearly one-third (75%) of doctors faced workplace violence at least once in their lifetime in India. Based on this background study has been conducted with the objectives to assess the knowledge and perceptions of the medical code of ethics and standard basic legal fundamentals and to find out the level of understanding on handling different legal situations and medical laws among doctors in a tertiary care institution. An institutionalbased cross-sectional study was conducted. Out of 120 participants, 68 (56.6%) were male and the remaining 52 (43.3%) were females. Nearly half of them were not aware of the importance of consent (49%), and the majority of the participants, 67 (5%) were not aware in which form the consent must be obtained. Overall, 63% of the participants examined the sexual assault cases at least once. Irrespective of the specialty and cadre, allopathic practitioners are grossly deficient in medicolegal knowledge, which is a primary concern and needs to be addressed urgently. It requires regular reinforcement training and workshops to update the medicolegal issues from time to time, at least annually. Concerned National organizations must introduce an accredited certificate course on Basic Medico legal laws (BML) and Advanced Medico legal laws (AML) to make literate doctors in medicolegal laws.