The Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) has made a historic ruling that physiotherapists all over India are not permitted to use the ‘Dr’ prefix, as it is a privilege reserved only for registered medical practitioners.
According to the letter from DGHS chief Dr Sunita Sharma to Indian Medical Association President Dr Dilip Bhanushali, the purpose of the decision is to prevent the practices which mislead the public and cause a loss of their trust and even jeopardise their safety.
The Indian Medical Degrees Act, 1916 serves as a legal basis for the decision, and it has elicited heated discussions with potential effects on healthcare and the professional status of physiotherapists.
On the heels of complaints from the Indian Association of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, the DGHS has banned the Competency Based Curriculum for Physiotherapy 2025 from proceeding with the proposed title “Dr” next to the suffix “PT” for physiotherapists. Dr Sharma’s reply firmly positions that there is no reason to do so if physiotherapists are not medically trained, and the only outcome that could be achieved is to increase the incidence of quackery by utilising the title. “The patients as well as the public get misled by these, and this may result in them doing some kind of harmful treatment,” the order states, referring to the instances of misdiagnoses done by non-medics that worsened the medical symptoms.
The directive orders the curriculum to be changed immediately so that the ‘Dr’ prefix is removed and a less ambiguous and more respectful name for physiotherapy graduates is suggested.
The announcement is well grounded in law. Judgements by the Patna High Court (2003), Madras High Court (2022), and an advisory by the Tamil Nadu Medical Council dated 2016, are among those that stop physiotherapists from taking the ‘Dr’ title and instead label them as paramedics who should be under the supervision of a medical doctor.
The Ethics Committee of the Paramedical and Physiotherapy Central Council Bill, 2007, states that the ‘Doctor’ title can only be used by practitioners of modern medicine, Ayurveda, Homoeopathy, and Unani.
The DGHS points out that law offenders could be subject to the punishments mentioned in Section 7 of the IMA Act for violating Sections 6 and 6A.
The reactions to the order are divided. While some feel that it is a step towards better understanding of roles in the healthcare sector, others think that it downgrades the knowledge of physiotherapists who are an integral part of the rehabilitation process in a country where mobility-related health issues are on the rise.
The Indian Association of Physiotherapists, which took the side of their right to the prefix in 2010, might refute it by emphasising the role of physiotherapists in the diagnosing and treatment of physical disorders. The healthcare community is presently in the position to face a very controversial change that will affect patient trust, as the matter is still being reviewed going by official sources.
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