The Opinionated Scalpel
Indian law does not ask whether your patient signed. It asks whether they understood — and whether you can prove it. A practising clinician's working notes on what consent actually requires: the case law, the regulations, and the gap between them and what happens in most hospitals every day.
Consent Is Not a Clinical Document
The Opinionated Scalpel — 01 Some time ago I was called to a court as a witness, in a matter concerning my own hospital. It was my first time. I had spent twenty-five years in medicine by then and…
Your Patient’s WhatsApp Message Is Now a Legal Liability. Did Anyone Tell You?
The Opinionated Scalpel: Sharp takes, cleaner cuts There is a particular kind of ignorance that is not laziness. It is the ignorance of the overwhelmed. The doctor who finishes a twelve-hour OPD, drives home through traffic that would test…
The Consent That Wasn’t Given — And Perhaps Never Fully Can Be
There is a moment in medicine we rarely question. A patient signs a form. A doctor proceeds. And we call it informed consent. We have built an entire legal and ethical architecture around this moment. We treat it as the…
The Sky Has Fallen: Doctors Die Young
By Dr. Shishir Srivastav But for that mysteriously crooked one minute between soaring dreams and the Dreamliner’s dive, they would have been stitching wounds, fixing broken bones, performing CPR — and pouring hope into tragedy-stricken souls. But for that crooked…
