Medicolegal knowledge amongst medical fraternity: A survey

As health care rapidly evolves, medicolegal issues play an increasingly important role. To acknowledge the importance of medicolegal knowledge and improve the current quality of medicolegal education, a study on 504 registered medical practitioners was done to know the standards of medicolegal knowledge by personal contact with questionnaire, having questions related to medicolegal duties, consent and medical negligence. Majority of the registered medical practitioners (75.4%) belong to the age group of 20 to 40 years. 315 (62.5%) had experience of 0 to 10 years, 128 (25.4%) had experience of 11 to 25 years and 61 (12.1%) had 26 to 50 years experience after internship. 191 (37.9%) had poor, 72 (14.3%) had average and 28 (5.6%) had good knowledge towards medicolegal practice. The registered medical practitioners who had faced hindrance in performing medicolegal duties were 59.2% of which 42.1% were males and 17.1% were females. Thus, aim of the present study was to improve the standard of medicolegal knowledge among the registered medical practitioners which is being discussed.