In November 2014, eleven women died in a sterilization camp in Bilaspur. In June 2016, a seventy-five-year-old man from Kolkata was left to die because he could not afford a bribe of Rs 50 at a government hospital. That same month, a gang that duped women into selling their eggs for surrogacy was busted in Pune. The medical profession in India is plagued by scams and malpractices: poor health care, commissions from needless treatments and tests, exploitative drug companies. How then do patients trust doctors, hospitals or medications? And how does a doctor work effectively and honestly in a deeply troubled system? Dr Kamal Kumar Mahawar examines the roles of the government and the judiciary and policy-making in medicine. He explores how the Indian Medical Association’s code of ethics are out of sync with modern times. Analysing the connections between power and knowledge and exposing the dangerous ways in which they play out in medicine, the book asks an all-important question: is it possible to be an ethical doctor today?

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