41 Bibhuti Bhusana Panda et al. Indian Journal of Forensic and Community Medicine 2014;1(1):41-43. --------------------------------------------------------------Review Article------------------------------------------------------------- ISSN 2394-6768(Print) e-ISSN 2394-6776(Online)s Indian Journal of Forensic and Community Medicine A REVIEW ON DUTIES OF DOCTOR IN CASE OF SUSPECTED POISONING Hemant Kumar Sahoo 1 , Kunal Mishra 2 , Bibhuti Bhusana Panda 3,* 1 Professor, 2 Associate Professor, 3 Assistant Professor, FMT, IMS & SUM Hospital, K-8, Kalinganagar, Bhubaneswar, Dist-Khorda, Odisha-751003, India *Corresponding Author: E-mail: bibhutifmt@gmail.com Abstract: Duties of registered medical practitioner (RMP) while dealing a suspected poisoning case increases as it is a medical emergency along with the legal issues associated with it. The role of doctor is not only to follow a basic management protocol, but also to handle the legal formalities, following the treatment part. The basic treatment modalities should be supportive care, accurate diagnosis, use of toxidromes, removal of unabsorbed poison, elimination of absorbed poison and antidote administration if available. The legal documentation, following treatment should be clear and accurate. Police information should be given where necessary. The doctor is duty bound to all other legal and ethical work, concerning a poisoning case otherwise liable for punishment as per the current law. So by applying our skill and knowledge and doing our duty correctly, we doctors not only save the life of the patients but also protect the legal rights of individual or the state. Keywords: Duties of RMP, poisoning case, management, legal formalities, toxidromes. Introduction Poisoning cases are a significant contributor to mortality and morbidity throughout the world. According to WHO, there million acute poisoning cases with 2, 20,000 deaths occur annually. Of these, 90% of fatal poisoning occurs in developing countries particularly among agricultural workers. Acute poisoning forms one of the commonest causes of emergency hospital admissions. The exact incidence of poisoning in India is uncertain but it has been estimated that about 5 to 6 persons per lakh of population die due to poisoning every year. [1] When a poisoning case admitted into a hospital, the responsibility of the treating doctor increases as it a medico-legal emergency. The doctor not only has to treat the patient as emergency but also maintain the legal formalities following the treatment. Approach of the doctor for the management of the poisoning case should be to identify the poison, route of administration and amount of poison ingested, time of ingestion and exposure and to assess severity of poisoning. The basic principles of treatment should be to remove unabsorbed poison, use of antidotes, elimination of poison and treatment of general symptoms. [2] There has been gaining popularity of newer methods like use of activated charcoal and a variety of newer antidotes. Attention has also shifted to ‘toxidromes’ that is the collection of