What are night shifts for Indian doctors like? 35% feel 'unsafe', 45% get no duty room, and...
Doctors of age 20-30 years had the lowest sense of safety and this group largely consists of interns and postgraduates, according to the survey
prativad 
An IMA study has revealed that one-third of its respondent doctors, majority of them being women, felt ”unsafe” or ”very unsafe” during their night shifts, so much so that some even felt the need to start carrying weapons for self-defence.
A duty room was not available to 45 per cent of respondents during night shifts, found the online survey undertaken by the Indian Medical Association (IMA) to evaluate safety concerns during night shifts among doctors in the backdrop of recent alleged rape and murder of a trainee woman doctor at the state-run RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata.
With 3,885 individual responses, it is the largest study from India on this topic, the IMA claimed.
The survey findings, compiled by Dr Rajeev Jayadevan, Chairman, Research Cell, Kerala State IMA, and his team, have been accepted for publication in IMA’s Kerala Medical Journal October 2024 issue.
The respondents were from over 22 states with 85 per cent of them being under 35 years while 61 per cent were interns or postgraduate trainees.
Women constituted 63 per cent, aligning with the gender ratio in some MBBS courses.
”Several doctors reported feeling unsafe (24.1 per cent) or very unsafe (11.4 per cent), totalling one-third of the respondents. The proportion of those feeling unsafe was higher among women,” the survey findings showed.
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