dehradun a rising number of incidents in the country where irate relatives of a patient have thrashed a doctor has led the medical practitioners in uttarakhand to take measures to ensure their safety doctors are using a smartphone app called doctors emergency rescue task dert which is quipped with a panic button that sends texts and notifications along with the location of the user in case of an emergency over 150 doctors have signed up for the app doctors said that the app is required as many cases of violence against doctors by kin of patients are being reported according to estimates by the indian medical association ima over 75 of doctors across the country are reported to have faced at least some form of violence in the latest incident a doctor at a government hospital in dhule was brutally beaten up by relatives of an accident victim on sunday in uttarakhand a paediatrician at a government hospital in jaspur was shot dead in april 2016 allegedly by a man after the doctor reportedly refused to treat his ailing son a doctor at coronation hospital was also beaten with slippers by an angry mob after a patient he treated died in june 2016it was the rise in such cases that prompted third year computer science student at vellore institute of technology sharad agarwal whose parents are doctors practising in dehradun to develop an app to help the medical fraternity talking to toi agarwal said in the recent past uttarakhand has seen an increase in cases where patients kin have thrashed and shockingly even killed a doctor i wanted to come up with a solution for doctors who try to save lives but are themselves at riskagarwal added the app has already been used successfully in over half a dozen incidents of violence on doctors in the hill state in the past few months dr d d choudhury honorary secretary general ima uttarakhand said that 50 incidents of violence against doctors by patients kin are reported in uttarakhand every year agarwal has written to the ima to approve the app and encourage doctors to use it