Published Mar 05, 2026 | 9:51 AM ⚊ Updated Mar 05, 2026 | 9:51 AM
Doctor. (Representative image)
Synopsis: According to a recent study, 91.4 percent of Indian doctors said they would not encourage their children to enter medicine. Doctors cites several reasons for their choice, such as high stress, long working hours, and financial instability, among others.
At 35, Dr Mohammad Jahangir still travels to work by bus. He holds an MCh in urology, the highest surgical qualification India offers in urology. He spent 35 years climbing through MBBS, MS, and then a super-speciality degree at Osmania Medical College in Hyderabad. His government salary as an assistant professor is roughly ₹1 lakh a month. His stipend, when it arrives, is three to six months late.
“My entire youth went into this,” he told South First. “Even today, I remain financially dependent on my parents.”
He does not want his children to become doctors.
He is not alone. According to a recent study released by the Debabrata Mitalee Auro Foundation, founded by ophthalmologist Dr Debraj Shome, 91.4 percent of Indian doctors surveyed said they would not encourage their children to enter medicine. The foundation surveyed 1,208 physicians between January and June 2025, drawing from private clinics and government hospitals across metros and Tier-II cities.
The number stops people. Nine in 10. Nearly an entire profession, voting with the one choice that cannot be faked: What they wish for their own children.
The foundation gathered responses from doctors across specialities, including general medicine, surgery, paediatrics, dermatology, gynaecology, and orthopaedics.
63 percent of respondents were male, 37 percent female — 80 percent worked in private practice, 20 percent in government hospitals.
Questionnaires went out through hospital networks and professional medical bodies, and researchers conducted in-person interviews alongside digital surveys.
The anonymity mattered. Doctors spoke.
The study found that 78 percent reported high burnout levels in the past year; 84 per cent said they believed they faced a greater risk of physical or verbal assault than the general population; 67 percent had been named in some form of medico-legal complaint; 56 percent reported symptoms of anxiety or depression.
To place that last figure in context: globally, 29 percent of doctors report depression symptoms, according to a 2022 study in JAMA. The Indian figure, if the survey holds, runs nearly double that. In the UK, a 2023 British Medical Association report found one in four doctors had considered quitting because of stress. In this Indian study, 47 percent said they had actively considered leaving medicine altogether.
Dr Jahangir described what that pressure does to clinical work. “One medico-legal case can demand compensation of ₹50 lakh or even ₹1 crore,” he said. “With such risks hanging over us, how can a doctor operate freely? Fear changes clinical decisions.”
He spoke about violence in government hospitals. About patients who expect zero complications and sometimes free treatment. About corporate hospitals that tell doctors there are 10 others ready to work for less.
“In Hyderabad, MBBS graduates are being paid ₹20,000,” he said. “Small vendors earn more in a few hours than many young doctors earn in a month.”
“Even government jobs come with strict restrictions. We are not allowed to do private practice, even during the evening hours after completing our official duties. We are required to sign bonds committing that we will not engage in private practice. But despite these restrictions, the government does not provide any non-practice allowance in return. Doctors are expected to give up additional income opportunities, yet there is no compensation for that limitation,” said Dr Jahangir.
Dr Mohammed Zeeshan Ali, a consultant radiologist at Airoc Hospital, pushes back on the 91 percent figure.
“The figures you mentioned may be coming largely from a clinical perspective, especially from those working in surgery or running private clinics, where challenges are more intense,” he told South First. “I believe that around 40–50 percent of doctors would still want their children to enter medicine, because it remains a respectable and rewarding field.”
He made the shift himself. He faced difficulties in surgery and moved into radiology. The move did not shake his belief in the profession.
“Medicine is a meaningful and worthwhile career,” he said, “and the next generation should consider pursuing it.”
His viewpoint points to something the raw number obscures: The 91 percent figure may concentrate among those who carry the most risk, the surgeons, the government hospital physicians, the doctors who built their practice from scratch in a saturated market with no inherited patient base to fall back on.
Dr Jahangir names that divide plainly. “Doctors who come from well-established families, who already have a running hospital and an established patient base, may want their children to continue the profession. Their children can inherit the hospital and the clientele. But people like me, who built everything from scratch, face a very different reality.”
The foundation’s report calls for dedicated mental health support programmes for doctors, government policy that protects physicians from violence and legal harassment, and hospital HR structures that allow sabbaticals and stress-relief rotations.
Dr Shome’s book, Doctors Are Not Murderers, published alongside the study, draws experiences from real cases to map the emotional toll practitioners carry. The title alone signals what the study confirms: that somewhere between the operating theatre and the court summons, a large share of India’s doctors stopped feeling like healers and started feeling like defendants.
Jahangir has spent 35 years and arrived at a salary he calls “peanuts” for the risk he carries every shift.
“This field has become synonymous with sacrifice,” he said. “In return, we get stress, insecurity and very little support.”
His children, he has decided, will find another road.
(Edited by Muhammed Fazil.)
