Medical education in India is afflicted with a culture of abuse and workplace bullying of junior doctors and medical students. This abuse is often rationalised on grounds of so-called high standards of healthcare delivery. Poor standards of work sometimes get attributed to caste-based reservations vs admissions based on "merit" due to elitist mindsets that prevail in our society. The cycle of abuse that goes on in medical colleges is incorporated (though not in a legal sense) into its hierarchical structure. Focussing attention only on casteism tends to overshadow the bullying of doctors and medical students by their senior colleagues at the workplace.