Good morning. Three of today’s five stories turn on paper — a consent form that was never signed, a charge that was never written down, a lab report nobody mentioned for eight years
— DR. ADITYA SETH, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
01 · THE LEAD
MEDICOLEGAL
The council took his licence. It never named the charge.
6 July 2017. A woman 31 weeks pregnant comes to the labour room at Jorhat Medical College. There has been no foetal movement since that morning. The doctor on duty scans her: the foetus has died in the womb. She is otherwise stable, so labour is induced instead of a caesarean that night. His shift ends at 8 am and he hands her over.
Induction fails for four days. On 21 July a different doctor does the caesarean. On the morning of 22 July she cannot breathe, and she dies. Post-mortem: pulmonary oedema.
That same day a hospital committee of five doctors takes statements and clears everyone. Five days later the same official chairs a death review meeting that blames the admitting doctor for the whole week. The first report is never mentioned again. He is transferred in August, then suspended. The council notice tells him to appear with his documents, but never says what he is accused of. In September 2018 it withdraws his registration for six months — finding and penalty, no reasons.
Eight years later, Justice Kaushik Goswami called for the original file and found that first report. On 28 August 2026 he quashed the order. No charge was ever named. The complaints were never shown to the doctor. Nobody could produce a roster or an SOP saying the patient stayed his after handover. And the order gave no reasons at all.
The court did not say he was innocent. The council can start again, properly this time. He won the process, not the case.
WHY IT MATTERS
Ask for the allegation in writing, first. A notice that tells you to appear with your documents but names no charge is not a case you can defend — and the court treated that as fatal, not technical.
Make them produce the duty document. The entire case rested on the admitting doctor staying responsible after handover. No roster, no charter, no SOP was ever filed. If they cannot produce that paper, that is your defence.
What hurt him most was an absence, not an act. No ward entry showed he saw her again after handover. The hospital’s own committee had separately recorded that record-keeping in that department was very poor.
02 · MEDICOLEGAL
No signed consent form: a dentist is out ₹2 lakh
A Delhi commission did not rule on the root canal. It ruled on what the file could prove — and the file held no consent form, and nothing showing the patient had agreed to the shade and shape of the crown. Eighteen days passed between the first visit and the procedure. ₹2 lakh, payable in three months.
03 · CLINICAL
The stone pill most of us reach for first just lost a 33,518-patient head-to-head
Out of 100 patients started empirically on potassium citrate, about 6 were in theatre within three years. On a thiazide, about 3 to 4. Roughly 1 in 18 against 1 in 29 — and the gap held in every subgroup the authors re-cut. Since a 24-hour urine gets done in under 8% of high-risk stone formers, this is a study about the patients you never worked up.
04 · PHARMA
Qdenga in India: Dr Reddy’s to sell the first approved dengue vaccine from 2027
Two doses, all four serotypes, no need to establish prior infection first, private market from H1 2027. Indian approval came with a string attached: a local post-marketing safety and effectiveness study within six months of launch. Nothing is buyable yet — useful to have straight before the next patient asks this monsoon.
04 · POLICY
A Nestlé follow-up formula failed its biotin test twice. FSSAI has filed 3 cases.
Two of the three cases are about the e-commerce listing rather than the tin — the “5 HMOs” and whey claims on NAN Excella Pro Stage 1, and the “easy to digest” line on Lactogen Pro 1. The third is a lab finding: a follow-up formula sample substandard for biotin, confirmed non-conforming by the referral laboratory on re-analysis. Nestlé says it is fully compliant. Its statement did not address the biotin result.
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Policy
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Medical teachers can’t be employed past 70. Most are retired by 62 anyway.
The Supreme Court threw out a plea to raise the cap to 75. Almost everyone repeating the number has it wrong: 70 is a ceiling on employment as faculty, not a retirement age. Your exit date sits in your state or institutional service rules, usually five to ten years below it. Where 70 actually bites is private and deemed colleges, which have no statutory retirement age and hold about half of India’s MBBS seats.
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