Modern medicine has conquered diseases once thought impossible. It has extended life, mended bodies and rewritten the limits of survival. However, in many hospitals across the nation, there exists a void of trust between doctors and patients that jeopardises thousands upon thousands of lives. The breakdown of this relationship has caused a significant amount of emotional and mental trauma for many patients, which ultimately undermines patients’ level of trust and severity toward their physicians. In a new book by internationally renowned facial plastic surgeon and bestselling author Dr Debraj Shome, Doctors Are Not Murderershe addresses the reasons for this trauma and argues that this catastrophe is truly an emotional, and cultural crisis rather than a medical one.
When Dr Debraj decided to write the book, it wasn’t a casual project. It came from a place of urgency — an ‘inescapable moment’, as he describes it — shaped by decades in medicine, a global pandemic, and the rising hostility doctors face today.
“I’ve been a doctor for 25 plus years. I trained in India, trained abroad, and even have an MBA from Vanderbilt. That gives you a different lens,” he says, recalling a career that began at Grant Medical College and JJ Hospital, followed by 13 years of training in the United States. That lens — clinical, global and personal — forms the foundation of the book.
The seeds, he explains, were planted in 2019 when he co-authored Dear People, With Love and Care, Your Doctors. Even the publisher was doubtful. “They asked me, ‘Who will read a book written by doctors, for patients, about doctors?’ But it reached number seven on Amazon India’s bestseller list. We sold 25,000 copies. We even ranked above Michelle Obama’s book,” he says.
The book resonated because it addressed a growing distrust. He explains, “It spoke about how doctors didn’t want to be gods, but we certainly didn’t want to be called dogs either. Medicine is not an exact science. Everybody is different. Yet people expect 100% success.”
Then came the pandemic — and the hostility intensified.
He recalls, “In 2020, people banged plates to thank doctors. Within a year, we were being called murderers.” The swing, he believes, was fuelled by misinformation and fear. He highlights, “India has a huge diabetic population. They were more vulnerable to COVID, so the death rate was higher. But instead of understanding that, people blamed doctors. It was absurd.”
That realisation made Doctors Are Not Murderers inevitable. He states, “The title is intentionally provocative because that’s how doctors feel. The word ‘not’ is written in red and bold on the cover because we’re tired of being labelled.”
The book includes contributions from 25 doctors — oncologists, neurosurgeons, gynecologists, homeopaths and naturopaths — offering a panoramic view of Indian medicine. He shares, “It has stories of science so advanced we can burn a pea-sized brain tumour with lasers without opening the skull. And stories that will make you laugh or cry.”
Much of his material comes from daily encounters he documents on LinkedIn. He says, “Every day is a story. The patient who wants to fly to Turkey because he doesn’t trust Indian doctors. The patient who drinks milk two hours before surgery and collapses. Then people ask if the doctor’s medicines caused their stomach upset.”
For him, these anecdotes reflect a broader cultural decline. He adds, “The ethics of human beings overall have gone down. We live in a time where paneer is adulterated, rice is adulterated, and so are doctors. ”
Social media outrage and a “two-minute-noodle mindset,” he says, have made things worse. “Artificial intelligence is rising, but natural stupidity has increased. People don’t use their prefrontal cortex anymore.”
The consequences are already visible. He shares, “Doctors live 10 years shorter than the average Indian. Medical seats are going empty. The best students don’t want to become doctors.” This fear has altered medical practice. Sometimes he simply steps back.
He believes the public must help rebuild trust. “If patients speak up and say, ‘You can’t beat a doctor — tomorrow there will be no doctor left,’ that will help. If I could save everyone, I would’ve saved my own father,” he concludes in a warm heartfelt tone.
