A CME on ‘Medical termination of pregnancy (MTP) & Medicolegal implications’ was organized on Saturday at AIIMS Bhopal. On this occasion, Professor (Dr) Ajai Singh, Executive Director of AIIMS Bhopal said that unsafe abortion has become the biggest cause of pregnancy related death today.

Despite the enactment of the MTP Act 1971 and the MTP Amendment Bill 2020, a large number of illegal and unsafe abortions are taking place in India. Therefore, it becomes necessary that not only gynecologists and obstetricians but all people in the medical field including registered medical practitioners, students should have adequate knowledge in this field.

Professor Singh said most of the medicolegal cases relate to issues of consent, emergency services, medical records, malpractice and negligence. These can be easily avoided with written consent, effective communication with the patient and his family, proper data recording and proper risk management.

Earlier, welcoming the presence, Dr. K. Pushpalatha, Head of the Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics, while discussing the objectives of organizing the CME, said that the objective of this CME is to create awareness among the registered medical doctors, students, nurses, medicosocial workers working in the field. To create awareness about medicolegal and ethical considerations related to MTP.

 During this, Dr. Prabhakar Tiwari, CMHO, while explaining the importance of this type of workshop, stressed on organizing more such workshops. Professor (Dr) Rajneesh Joshi, Dean (Academics) expressed hope that the participants would get a chance to learn a lot from this workshop.

Guest speaker from Ahmedabad, Gynecologist and Obstetrician and Medicolegal Expert Dr. MC Patel discussed the amendments made in the MTP Act while Dr. Geetendra Sharma discussed the topic of "Criminal Negligence in Medical Practice" in detail with the participants and answered their questions.