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PRESS RELEASE
"I don't want my children
to be doctors anymore!"
Sumit Ghoshal's book, In the Pink of Wealth,
launched at the Press Club, Mumbai
Mumbai, 22 April 2004:
Doctors practising in Mumbai and other metropolitan
cities feel that they are in a continuous state of siege
to such an extent that some of them would like their
children to adopt any other profession but their own.
"I don't want my children to be doctors anymore!" This
was what well-known infertility specialist, Dr Aniruddh
S Malpani, said in Mumbai on Thursday. He was launching
a new novel titled, In the Pink of Wealth, by
Sumit Ghoshal.
"My parents were doctors, and I was quite happy to be
one," said Dr Malpani. "Today's doctors are no longer in
control of decisions that they take on behalf of their
patients. But, with the advent of health insurance and
third-party payment systems, the doctor is not only
answerable to the patient, but also to some bureaucrats
or administrators representing the health insurance
company."
Echoing these sentiments, Dr S V Dagaokar, former
vice-president of the Maharashtra Medical Council, also
observed that doctors in practice nowadays are under a
tremendous amount of pressure from various quarters.
Dr Dagaokar also said that doctors are needed in much
larger numbers than what are being produced in the
country. "For a population of over 10 million in Mumbai,
we have just about 24,000 practising medicos; it is not
a large number by any means."
These are also some of the aspects of the medical
profession, which have been highlighted in the novel
In the Pink of Wealth, published by Frog Books,
Mumbai.
Ghoshal, who has been a reporter with a number of
mainstream newspapers in Mumbai, has written extensively
on hospitals, medicines and doctors for over 15 years.
Talking about his work, Ghoshal said many of the
episodes in the novel were drawn from real incidents
that happened in different hospitals in the city at
different times.
He also read out a particularly moving passage from the
book, which described the last day of work of a senior
medical specialist who had been forced into retirement.
Dr Arshad Ghulam Mohammed, ex-president of the Indian
Medical Association, Mumbai, also spoke on the occasion.
For more details and copies of the book, please contact
+91 9820925342
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