Abstract:
Background: Medical negligence is a grave concern both to patients and the medical fraternity. Lapses in concentration,
stress, burnout, gross misconduct, lack of knowledge or application, sleeplessness, overwork, lack of continuing medical
education can all lead to medical negligence. The trauma experienced by both the victim and the person causing the
mistake is traumatic. Medical negligence should be minimised by the application of standard operating procedures,
training, work scheduling and provision of support in time of need. Medical students, the future doctors of tomorrow
have to cope with the stress they encounter during medical studies and practice. The dearth of knowledge about this
issue needs to be studied to find out remedies and alleviate this problem altogether,
Methods: Cross-sectional study involving 151 medical students of BLDE DU Shri B M Patil Medical College and
Research Centre, Vijayapura, North Karnataka, India. Convenience sampling method was used in this study.
Results: 151 medical students were part of this study; socio demographic profile indicates that the majority of the
participants belonged to male gender 78 (51.7%) and 73 (48.3%) females. The majority of the participants were from
urban areas 126 (83.4%) followed by rural 25 (16.6%). Most of the participants belonged to the age group 18-22 years,
Knowledge Grading showed that 95 (62.9%) had good knowledge
Conclusions: Medical negligence and its causative factors need to be studied in detail to sensitize future doctors to
bring a sea change to this situation.
