By Dr. K. Javeed Nayeem, MD

In a landmark development in the field of medical education, our Supreme Court has recently ruled that it is time to discard the decades old ‘both hands intact’ requirement for a candidate to be eligible to study medicine and become a doctor in our country. Accepting the one-member report filed by Dr. Satendra Singh, favouring the admission of a candidate with one arm to the MBBS course and rejecting the report of a five-member AIIMS medical board, which had held him ineligible, it has now directed the National Medical Commission (NMC) to revise its outdated criteria, which in its own words, “reeks of glorifying ableism.”

It has rightly said that such a stipulation in an era of Robotic Surgery, has no place in statuary regulation and has in fact the effect of denuding the rights guaranteed under the constitution, to persons with disabilities, who deserve equal opportunities in all fields. The Apex Court has said that this can be ensured only by not barring candidates at the threshold, but by granting them the choice after MBBS, to decide whether they wish to specialise in non-surgical branches or continue as general duty doctors.

This ground-breaking judgement could not have been more appropriate and timely, because in this era of modern medicine, where people with disabilities too can show satisfactory performance and render service to society, in their own ways, in fields of their choice. There are many fields, like psychiatry, dermatology, geriatrics and even general medicine, where a person if allowed to become a doctor, can do much good, with almost no difficulty, whatsoever. The medical field is not like the army, air-force, navy, police, aviation or the railways where every candidate should necessarily have every one of his or her faculties fully intact, to be able to perform safely and satisfactorily.

It may not be very widely known, but it is a very sad and distressing fact that every passing year, many candidates with ardent aspirations of serving society by becoming doctors, are forced to turn their eyes away from this noble profession and helplessly accept other alternate choices, simply because our archaic rules stand in their way. Now, all this is set to change for the better and open the vistas and allow them to spread their wings and chase their dreams. How wonderful!

RGUHS: Breaking the mould, a second time!

In the appointment of Dr. B.C. Bhagavan as the new Vice-Chancellor of the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS), much speculation has thankfully been dispelled, because the filling of this post had raised some questions and eyebrows too, about the qualifications required by the candidate to hold it. This happened when it became evident that a professor from a private medical college too, was among the runners for the post.

Many objections were raised that this post should be the sole prerogative of a candidate from a background of Government service. That these objections had no basis, procedural or legal, was something that was not taken into consideration. With the RGUHS being an autonomous institution and not a Government Department, there was and still is no reason why someone from any private medical college should not head it as long as the person has the requisite qualifications. It is a different matter that hitherto all the persons who held that post were from Government service.

What matters now is that this tradition which has no basis, has been broken and a precedent set for similar appointments in the years to come. And, to me, this seems like a breath of fresh air because candidates with a background of hailing from private institutions too have held similar posts across the length and breadth of our country and have conducted themselves exceedingly well, with a good many of them leaving behind them, rich legacies of admirable progress and development.

Knowing him as I do, Dr. Bhagavan too can be expected to do likewise and take the RGUHS to greater heights of academic excellence. I say this because as a post graduate student, I have had the opportunity of teaching him medicine, while he was an undergraduate student at the Mysore Medical College, in the early eighties. He was certainly among the brighter students of his batch and right from that very early stage of his life, he stood out as having strong leanings towards academic pursuits.

My second reason for having very optimistic expectations from him in holding his new position, stems from the fact that as the principal of The Kempegowda Institute of Medical Sciences, (KIMS), a post he held for quite some time, he has left behind a record of very capable leadership and governance. The next three years he has at his disposal, which is the tenure of his appointment, will give him the time and an opportunity to show us what he can do for one of the most prestigious institutions of our State and so let’s wish well in his new mission.

It is good that in his appointment, the mere tradition of appointing only persons from Government service as the Vice-Chancellors of the RGUHS has been broken!

A most tragic end!

In the recent passing away of Dr. George P. Abraham, one of the pioneers in the field of renal transplantation in our country, the medical fraternity has lost a person who had been an icon and guiding light to many others in his field. Having very successfully performed more than 2,000 kidney transplantations, amid other operations and trained hundreds of students, over an active career of more than twenty five years, his contribution can be considered monumental and his stamina and zeal, almost legendary.

And, very sadly, those two vital attributes that made him stand out, perhaps were his undoing. At his seventy fourth year, he ended his life by hanging himself at his own farmhouse in Kerala, after writing a suicide note that he was taking the extreme step, unable to bear the anguish of no longer being able to work like before, after a surgery to his back. What a shame! Such ordinary setbacks come to most of us, as we age, which force even the best performers amongst us to slow ourselves down a little, temporarily or even permanently.

But they should not become the end of our lifelines or the reasons to end our lives in depression. Who else, other than a doctor, could have said this to himself and continued to live, as the guiding beacon that he was, to others lost on the high seas of doubt and despair?

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