Maharashtra Medical Council collaborates with NMC to train doctors for managing medico-legal issues

New Delhi: Aiming to provide the doctors in the State with essential expertise and practical skills to manage medico-legal issues effectively, the Maharashtra Medical Council (MMC) has partnered with the Apex Medical Regulator National Medical Commission (NMC).

This comes after the State Medical Council took note of the growing demand from the members of the Council for guidance on handling the medico-legal cases. Primarily, the doctors demanded to address the allegations of misconduct and appeals filed by the patients and their families against the registered medical practitioners.

A workshop in this regard is scheduled on Saturday, with the help of the NMC Ethics Board. Representatives from medical colleges and district hospitals across Maharashtra will attend this workshop.

Also Read: Eminent paediatrician Dr Vinky Rughwani takes charge as administrator of Maharashtra Medical Council

Confirming this, the administrator of MMC Dr Vinky Righwani informed Hindustan Times, "To begin with, we have designed a workshop, which will be held on Saturday, with the help of the Ethic and Medical Registration Board of NMC. We will have distinguished speakers and trainers from the medico-legal field to share their insights and experiences."

He added that the workshop will feature interactive sessions, case studies, and practical exercises, offering participants a hands-on learning experience.

"They will be training the doctors from different medical colleges and private practitioners also about the legal cases, that means how the complaints are done, how the complaints are to be dealt with, how we can say that this is medical negligence," Dr. Rughwani added.

Addressing the huge number of medico-legal cases filed against doctors, Dr. Rughwani mentioned, "One of the functions of MMC is to hear the cases and complaints against the registered medical practitioners. As the Council, we hear both the parties- the doctor and the complainant before deciding if the doctor has done any medical negligence. Apart from the Council, local medical colleges, government medical colleges, too get such complaints."

"By fostering collaboration and knowledge-sharing, we hope to strengthen the healthcare system’s ability to address misconduct and appeal cases with diligence and integrity," he further added.

Around 1.8 lakh doctors are registered with MMC and the Council receives around 9,000 new registrations annually. HT adds that apart from helping the doctors to get an insight on the medico-legal cases, the Council has also decided to put its 692 pending cases including the ones pertaining to medical negligence complaints on fast track.

Mentioning that the council is planning to get help from the medical experts from the respective fields, Dr. Rughwani added, "For example, if the complaint is related to gynaecology, we will take the gynaecologist’s help to review the complaint and hearing. We plan to hold a hearing every week to finish the backlog."

Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that last year on October 05, 2023, the Ethics and Medical Registration Board (EMRB) of the National Medical Commission (NMC) had released its first publication an E-Book "Professional Conduct Review- Lessons from Case Archives".

The issue of medical negligence and legal consequences of such errors on the part of medical professionals were discussed in the book. This E-Book comprised comprehensive case studies adjudicated by seasoned professionals in their respective domains. Drawing from real-life examples, it sheds light on professional errors and their consequences, offering valuable lessons to stakeholders, particularly medical practitioners. It aimed to enhance awareness, mitigate professional errors, and safeguard patients from potential ethical lapses.

Altogether nine (9) case archives were discussed in Volume I of the NMC's E-book. In respect of each and every case, NMC discussed different topics including Communication Between the Doctor and Patient's Relatives, Allegations of Wrong Diagnosis Leading to Delay in Treatment, Specialty practice without Adequate Qualification/Training etc.

For each of the cases, the book elaborated on different aspects such as the keywords, context/category, abstract, summary of the case, discussion, decision of State Medical Councils or NMC Ethics Board, lessons learned from the case, take-home message, etc.

Also Read: Professional Conduct Review - Lessons from Case Archives: NMC unveils its first publication