A man and his son are badly injured in a car accident and are rushed to the hospital for emergency surgery. The doctor looks at the boy and says I cannot operate on this patient he is my son. How can this situation be logically explained?

Introduction / Context:
This well known riddle highlights unconscious assumptions about gender roles in professions. Many people automatically picture a doctor as male and therefore get confused by the story even though the logical explanation is simple. The puzzle is often used to discuss bias in reasoning and to encourage more flexible thinking about who can hold which job.

Given Data / Assumptions:
- A man and his son are in a serious car accident and both are taken to hospital.- A doctor in the hospital sees the boy and states I cannot operate on this patient he is my son.- There is no suggestion that the man in the accident is not the father of the boy.- We assume that the story does not involve adoption, time travel, or any supernatural twist.

Concept / Approach:
The key is to recognise that a child can have two parents, a mother and a father, and either parent might be a doctor. The phrase my son is not restricted to male speakers. If you drop the hidden assumption that doctors are male, the most straightforward explanation is that the doctor is the boy mother and the man from the car accident is his father.

Step-by-Step Solution:
Step 1: The story explicitly calls one adult a man and identifies the child as his son. So that adult is the father of the boy.Step 2: At the hospital a doctor says that the boy is also my son. This means that the doctor is another parent of the same child.Step 3: A child normally has two biological or legal parents, commonly a mother and a father.Step 4: Since the father is already present in the accident narrative, the logical remaining parent is the mother.Step 5: Therefore the doctor speaking in the hospital must be the boy mother, and there is no contradiction at all.

Verification / Alternative check:
You can retell the story with explicit names. Suppose Ravi and his son Amit are injured and taken to hospital. In the hospital Doctor Meera sees Amit and says I cannot operate on this patient he is my son. Now it is clear that Meera is Amit mother and Ravi is Amit father. The confusion disappears as soon as you avoid assuming that doctor automatically means a man.

Why Other Options Are Wrong:
Option A suggests that the doctor is the father of the boy, but the father is already in the car with the boy during the accident, so they cannot be the same person in this story.Option C stepfather would require extra background that is not mentioned and still does not resolve the presence of the biological father in the car.Option D grandfather is also inconsistent because the statement he is my son would not normally be used by a grandfather without further explanation.

Common Pitfalls:
The most common pitfall is an unconscious stereotype that doctors are male. This assumption makes people search for complicated twists such as adoption or secret relationships. The puzzle is specifically designed to reveal this bias and show that the simplest logical answer is that the doctor is a woman and the mother of the child.

Final Answer:
The situation is explained by the fact that the doctor is the boy mother.