Can strikes by resident doctors training to become
consultants in Indian public-sector teaching hospitals
be ethical? These hospitals were established for the medical
care of the very poor in a country where health insurance
and a national health service are nonexistent. In such
a situation, the paralysis of tertiary healthcare centers
by striking doctors runs contrary to the raison d'être
of the profession. It also violates the first dictum of
medicine: Primum, non nocere. And although there
is some discussion in the Western literature on strikes
by doctors, authorities in India are silent on the subject.