The document provides stark documentation of the toxic environment these doctors live in, serving as a warning to prospective students about unacceptable conditions prevalent in numerous Indian medical institutions.
Published Aug 15, 2025 | 7:00 AM ⚊ Updated Aug 15, 2025 | 7:00 AM
Representative image.
Synopsis: Recently, a document shared on X showed a comprehensive list naming medical colleges across the country, detailing why each was considered toxic, from systematic ragging and physical abuse to mental harassment and sexual assault. Based on the survey findings, 52 medical colleges from the South Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana, as well as the Union Territory of Pondicherry, were identified as having toxic elements.
On Monday, 11 August, an X user with the username @autopsy_surgeon posted a 110-page document that sent shockwaves through India’s medical education system.
The comprehensive list named medical colleges across the country, detailing why each was considered toxic, from systematic ragging and physical abuse to mental harassment and sexual assault. Organised meticulously by college, department, state, and city, it read like a catalogue of institutional failures.
The document spread rapidly across social media after being shared by the X handle. However, as quickly as it had appeared, it vanished. The author, facing mounting problems from the document’s viral spread, deleted it from all platforms.
Yet, in those crucial hours of circulation, it had already exposed something far more disturbing than anyone anticipated, a pattern of abuse so widespread and systematic that it suggested medical education in India was facing a crisis of unprecedented scale.
Despite its removal, the document has been shared in multiple WhatsApp groups, on Facebook and Reddit.
The document provides stark documentation of the toxic environment these doctors live in, serving as a warning to prospective students about unacceptable conditions prevalent in numerous Indian medical institutions.
Based on the survey findings, 52 medical colleges from the South Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana, as well as the Union Territory of Pondicherry, were identified as having toxic elements. Karnataka led with 17 colleges, followed by Tamil Nadu with 13 colleges, Telangana with eight, and Andhra Pradesh and Kerala with six colleges each. Pondicherry reported two colleges with toxic environments.
The most widespread and severe form of toxicity manifests as comprehensive abuse and harassment across physical, verbal, mental and sexual dimensions. Verbal and mental abuse are endemic, with professors, heads of departments, and senior residents regularly engaging in shouting, belittling and public humiliation of students, often in front of patients and peers.
This constant criticism and gaslighting create an atmosphere where students are made to feel incompetent and worthless.
Physical abuse has become disturbingly normalised, with explicit reports of hitting, pushing, slapping and even beating with belts occurring in front of patients. The traditional practice of ragging continues unabated, involving forced ingestion of rotten food and alcohol, along with various forms of physical and psychological torture designed to break down junior students.
Sexual harassment and exploitation represent perhaps the most disturbing aspect of institutional toxicity. Multiple colleges report systematic sexual harassment, groping, and demands for sexual favours by faculty members and management. Those who resist face severe academic retaliation, including deliberate failure in examinations and harassment of family members.
The institutional response typically involves silencing victims rather than addressing perpetrators, creating a culture where sexual exploitation is protected by power structures.
Medical trainees face extreme workloads, with 36–72-hour shifts and up to 120-hour weeks without rest days. Students are denied adequate food, rest and hygiene breaks. Many are exploited for non-medical errands — from professors’ personal chores to clerical work — and some are even coerced into money laundering. Financial exploitation is rampant through unpaid or delayed stipends, forced cash returns, and demands to fund faculty events or buy their own equipment.
The concept of weekly offs has been completely eliminated in many institutions, with students expected to remain on call even after completing 24-hour shifts. This creates a relentless cycle of exhaustion where students have no opportunity for recovery or personal time, severely impacting both physical and mental health.
Beyond their medical training, students are routinely exploited for personal and administrative tasks that have nothing to do with medical education.
Residents and interns are forced to run personal errands for professors, including updating passbooks, completing homework for professors’ children, and purchasing personal items.
They are also made to perform extensive clerical work and handle professors’ financial transactions, including money laundering activities.
Financial exploitation is systematic, with many colleges engaging in non-payment, delayed payment, or arbitrary reduction of stipends. Students are often forced to return portions of their stipends in cash or fund meals and parties for senior residents and faculty members. Some institutions demand that residents pay for their own essential equipment while working effectively as unpaid labour for private hospitals offering medical courses.
Training is often inadequate, with students kept from hands-on practice. Marks and exam results are manipulated based on compliance or payment. Discrimination based on region, caste, religion and language shapes academic outcomes, with preferential treatment for favoured groups and targeted harassment of others.
Colleges engage in bribery, unrecorded fee collection, and money laundering via student accounts. Fraudulent patient records and dummy setups are used to pass inspections, and regulatory shutdowns are often overturned through bribery.
Widespread systemic malpractice suggests institutional cultures that prioritise profit and power over education and student welfare. Colleges regularly manipulate examination results, with some departments showing 100 percent failure rates that appear designed to extract additional fees or favours from students.
Faculty members without proper qualifications are employed to teach, while qualified staff engage primarily in exploitation rather than education.
Many institutions maintain elaborate facades for regulatory inspections, including having nursing students pose as patients and creating entirely fictitious medical records. The prioritisation of appearance over substance extends to infrastructure, where basic facilities are lacking while resources are diverted to administrative corruption and personal enrichment.
The comprehensive toxicity of medical education has created a severe mental health crisis with tragic consequences. Multiple institutions report student suicides directly attributed to harassment, overwork, and exploitation. The psychological toll manifests as widespread depression, anxiety, and trauma that affects students’ ability to function both academically and personally.
Students regularly report crying daily, feeling suicidal, and experiencing complete breakdowns due to the relentless pressure and abuse. The institutional response to mental health crises typically involves covering up incidents rather than addressing underlying causes, perpetuating cycles of trauma and tragedy.
It should be noted that according to a report by the National Task Force for Mental Health and Wellbeing in 2024, established by the National Medical Commission, 15.3 percent of postgraduate students voluntarily reported having diagnosed mental health disorders.
The survey revealed extensive problems with working conditions, with nearly half of postgraduate students working more than 60 hours per week and over 56 percent not receiving weekly days off.
Faculty and seniors were identified as primary sources of stress for 50 percent of students, while 42 percent attributed stress to college administration issues. About 12.7 percent of students reported being asked for unreasonable favours in exchange for passing examinations, severely undermining educational integrity.
The ragging problem remains extensive, with 9.7 percent of surveyed MBBS students confirming such experiences, while 13.5 percent preferred not to discuss the topic.
Among postgraduate students, 18 percent reported that ragging adversely affected them, while 27 percent experienced harassment from senior students and 31 percent from faculty and senior residents in clinical settings.
(Edited by Muhammed Fazil.)
