The term “Medicolegal” incorporates the basics of two professions, i.e. Medicine and Law. Although doctors encounter the law at every turn during the practice of their profession, they frequently have insufficient knowledge of it. A doctor confronts it when, as the treating doctor, he is summoned to a court of law in a personal injury lawsuit; he meets it when he is called as an expert in connection with a claim against a colleague and when he is faced in his office or clinic by unforeseen situations, like sudden unexpected death, patient-generated violence, etc. It will be better to accept the change and brace ourselves with the knowledge to cope with the change.

With passing time, the standards of medical care are rising as also the patients' expectations. This race may convert medical practice into a battleground between the doctors and patients. In India, medical law is yet to crystallize. Nothing can be said with absolute certainty on many issues as the final word is yet to come. The legal system wants medical practitioners to follow standard practices; setting standards is, however, a difficult task. Medicine is vast and ever-changing field. It is also equally important to take into account the needs of the individual patient, available infrastructure, resources and the regional limitations. A lot of information, documentation and know-how is therefore needed. In the last few years, the medicolegal scenario has changed further.

Every relationship is a dynamic process and doctor-patient relationship is no different. It has gone a sea-change since its beginning thousands of years back. It will be a futile exercise to look back and remember the good old days when the doctor was all powerful, a Semi-God. With the change in medicosocial dynamics, cases against doctors are witnessing a phenomenal rise, constant upgradation of the practicing doctor vis-á-vis the fast-changing laws of the country. Medical professional fumbles when they confront a court case against them with allegations of negligence or deficiency in medical service. It will be quite useful for today's doctors to be well-equipped with medicolegal knowledge if they want to practice their profession safely, without the hassle of too many cases slapped on them. Doctors in the West have been quicker to respond to the need for such knowledge. There is ample literature generated from the West, which analyzes the issues of legal aspects of medical practice and doctor-patient relationship thoroughly. There is scanty literature on this subject in India where the volume of patients is many times more than that of most of the Western countries. We should have our literature, studies and observations suited to our milieu. With the phenomenal increase in the patient volumes in India, the need for indigenous literature is going to be even greater in the future.

Each branch of medicine has its own medicolegal issues. There are different books on medicolegal issues pertaining to different branches of medicine, but no single book which comprehensively deals with medicolegal issues in most of the vulnerable branches together. This 10book was envisioned with the same objective in mind. The editors sincerely hope that this book will serve to fill the void effectively. The book looks beyond the problems and moves on to solutions. The editors hope that doctors from different specialities will find in this book constructive suggestions and solutions towards many of the issues which plague them.

An endeavor has been made to include the information related to almost all the branches in allopathic medical science and to create a perfect blend of clinical practice and various laws applicable to its varied aspects. It covers major issues which a doctor is likely to face during his/her professional career with case laws and important Supreme Court judgments in simple language, so that a doctor can easily understand its legal implication and apply it. A section on The Acts and certain important tips in the form of algorithms for Safe Practice while managing the patient, have been added, which would help the doctors to follow uniform standards, which, in turn, will help in better patient care.

Lastly, we welcome feedback and suggestions from the esteemed readers that will make the book more useful.