Imagine the misfortune that befell Air India’s pilots. While they were reeling under the spectre of pay cuts, they were suffering from headaches, stomach ailments, migraine and toothaches. For that is what they have been claiming as reasons for going on “sick leave”, sickness that miraculously vanished when they finally called off their strike on Wednesday. This is a farce and everybody knows it. The pilots, spoilt and overpaid, had struck work in protest, not out of pain. Yet, they feigned illness to avoid the technical repercussions of being on strike; some have even produced doctors’ certificates. What does this say about the standards of our medical profession?

A doctor who takes the Hippocratic Oath swears to “preserve the purity of my life and my arts”. The trust that is reposed in doctors’ certificates is based on the special place these “arts” hold in any society’s psyche. But at a time when false medical certificates are available for a fee, when doctors do not think twice before noting down an illness for a pleading patient, that trust is being called into question. Such brouhaha over a signed piece of paper might seem exaggerated. So what if somebody bunks a day of class or work? But the forged certificates end up hurting the genuinely ill who are looked upon with suspicion. Worse, they shine a harsh light on the noblest of professions and the body meant to regulate it.

Tasked with maintaining standards of medical education, granting permission to new colleges, and recognising/ derecognising doctors, the Medical Council of India is a self-regulating body. Like the Bar Council of India and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, it is based on the assumption that the technical requirements of a profession are best understood by those professionals themselves. But there is a fine line between a self-regulator and a lobby. The Bar Council hardly ever punishes errant lawyers, nor does the Medical Council usually go after doctors who put their signature on false certificates. It is good that the Air India management has called the pilots’ bluff, asking them to report to the airline doctor for certification of their illness. But the matter goes beyond the management. The MCI must step in, and take to task those doctors, and all others, who leave their imprint on blatantly false medical certificates.