Saturday, June 28, 2014

every things give us something


Once upon a time a very strong woodcutter asked for a job with a timber merchant, and he got it. His salary was really good and so were the working conditions. For that reason, the woodcutter was determined to do his best.

His boss gave him an axe and showed him the area where he was supposed to fell the trees. The first day, the woodcutter brought down 15 trees.

" Congratulations," the boss said. " Carry on with your work!"

Highly motivated by the words of his boss, the woodcutter tried harder the next day, but he only could bring 10 trees down. The third day he tried even harder, but he was only able to bring down 7 trees.

Day after day he was bringing lesser number of trees down.

" I must be losing my strength", the woodcutter thought. He went to the boss and apologized, saying that he could not understand what was going on.

" When was the last time you sharpened your axe?" the boss asked.
" Sharpen? I had no time to sharpen my axe. I have been very busy trying to cut trees..."


That's right. Most of us NEVER update our skills. We think that whatever we have learned is very much enough. But good is not good when better is expected. Sharpening our skills from time to time is the key to success.

www.univadis.in

Univadis, a medical education website, to be launched in India
Rupali Mukherjee,TNN | Jun 27, 2014, 07.29 PM IST


Pharma company MSD announced the launch of Univadis, a medical education website in India to empower and equip healthcare physicians with information and developments in the medical world. The interactive Univadis service will be a one-stop shop, and provide a wealth of medical resources, powerful tools, and accredited education courses from independent sources, exclusively for healthcare professionals through the website `www.univadis.in'.

Univadis is an online resource for healthcare professionals that has been launched in over 40 countries, is available in 17 languages with over 20 million registered users worldwide. MSD is depending on the growing internet connectivity in remote towns, and net browsing habit of healthcare professionals, MSD MD KG Ananthakrishnan said, adding that this was yet another effort by the company to further the cause of medical education for doctors.
MSD has collaborated with leading medical journal, The Lancet, to bring content in the form of articles, news, research papers, medical advancements, videos, and educational tools.

An advisory board of 12 doctors has been set up in the country, which will decide the content for the India-specific website.

Wednesday, June 25, 2014

condom uses moral.............

Sorry, Dr Harsh Vardhan, condom use is not a 'morality' issue

by Shruti Dhapola Jun 25, 2014 12:23 IST


“You don’t need them in all situations, not when you’re in a committed relationship,” he says. “I disagree, that’s when you need them the most,” I say.

The conversation ends, but I feel like a failure for not having converted another person to my steadfast rule: Always use a condom. Not just in cases of casual sex, but also in a committed relationship. Why? Mostly because condoms are effective against HIV, AIDS, unwanted pregnancy and other STDs 97 percent of the time. Plus they make sure that if your partner does break your trust, you don't end up with a broken heart and a sexually transmitted disease.

Condoms are the cheapest, most effective tool for safe sex. It is and ought to be promoted by every health professional to combat AIDS, unsafe abortions, and every kind of STD -- unless, of course, you are India's new health minister Dr Harsh Vardhan.

In an interview to New York Times he said, “The thrust of the AIDS campaign should not only be on the use of condoms. This sends the wrong message that you can have any kind of illicit sexual relationship, but as long as you’re using a condom, it’s fine.”

And he’s already started to crack down on this excessive talk about condoms. According to Economic Times, Dr Harsh Vardhan, “has already issued orders to the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) advising them “to tone down the emphasis on use of condoms and instead promote morals to tackle the disease.”

A message that is likely to be well-received since, according to the NYT piece, VK Subburaj, head of NACO the agency also thinks that the "moral fabric" of Indian society is "becoming very thin."

Subburaj also told ET that the emphasis on condoms will be there for high-risk groups like men who have sex with men, but "for the general public the minister has asked to stress on morals like being faithful, not indulging in pre-marital and extra-marital sex."

Representational image. AFP

The Health minister's policy directive is both bizarre and ironic given that his Prime Minister spared no effort to promote the use of condoms and contraceptive pills in order to promote family planning in Gujarat back in 2006.

As this Telegraph report from 2006 points out,

“Modi has lent his face to huge crates of condom and contraceptive pills that have suddenly appeared in every ration shop across Gujarat. The shopkeepers have been asked to open the boxes before every customer, man or woman, of the appropriate age and persuade them to take their pick. Early reports suggest that many customers have found the 'gimmick' in bad taste.”

Bad taste or not -- and Modi condom jokes aside -- the move suggested a commitment to contraception use that is laudable. Other than deterring unwanted pregnancies, AIDS, condoms also protects against other sexually transmitted diseases such as chlamydia, chancroid, gonorrhoea, hepatitis B, herpes, HPV (which can lead to cervical cancer in some cases) pelvic inflammatory disease (PID), syphilis trichomoniasis to name a few. And that isn't to mention the benefit of safe sex without going on the pill, which can interfere with a woman's menstruation cycle, hormonal balance, and have a number of unpleasant side-effects.

For Harsh Vardhan to complain about an "over-emphasis" on condoms in 2014 is not just retrograde but near-unprecedented. Condom use has been aggressively promoted -- including airing Nirodh ads on stuffy socialist era Doordarshan -- by politicians as part of family planning campaigns. When morality wasn't an issue for population control programs, why should it now become a part of a conversation about AIDS?

To be clear, Harsh Vardhan is not against condom use per se. He's just promoting a little bit of faithfulness, and that there's nothing wrong with that. The idea of abstinence as anti-AIDS tool is nothing new. As Anjali Gopalan of Naz foundation, an organisation that works with HIV patients told Economic Times, “the idea of Abstinence, Be faithful, Use a condom (ABC) approach has been around for long, but doesn't always work.” She also adds, "Just because condom is available, not everyone starts having sex. Either ways you need to promote condom use."

But the minister went far beyond the ABC model as a public health strategy to take a strong moral position, saying his ministry wants to promote "the integrity of the sexual relationship between husband and wife" as "part of our culture."

It is both wrong and dangerous to allow moral values -- which may or may not be shared by others -- to drive public health policy. And it is inevitably a recipe for failure, much like the Republican-era abstinence programs which abysmally failed to bring down teenage pregnancy rates.

Health initiatives fail when they preach, they succeed when they educate. And any education about safe sex must necessarily emphasise condom use. Besides, all this talk about "our culture" ignores the stark reality of how Indians actually behave.

We don't need 4 Seasons of Emotional Atyachar to show us that Indians like to play the field. As author Ira Trivedi noted in Outlook , her extensive research reveals a nation in the midst of a major sexual revolution. "My findings included reports that premarital sex in urban areas is on the rise and is currently at an estimated 75 per cent in the 18-24 age bracket," she writes, adding, "The changes that we see in Indian sexual culture today are the most significant that we have seen since colonial times."

Nor is this a new story. As Prabha Nagaraja, Executive Director, TARSHI told the ET, "Sex happens in India irrespective of cultural taboos as we have found in our work, especially the helpline that ran for 13 years (1996-2009) and attended to over 60,000 calls."

Now Harsh Vardhan may find these trends distressing, even appalling, but he must not use his position as Health Minister to fight them. It is simply not in his job description. Maybe it's time his Prime Minister told him so.

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

doctors to 62 years

Odisha enhances retirement age of doctors to 62 years
Press Trust of India | Bhubaneswar June 23, 2014 Last Updated at 21:37 IST

Faced with acute shortage of doctors in the state, the Odisha government today announced a raise in the retirement age limit for physicians working in government hospitals to 62 years.

Earlier, government doctors used to retire at the age of 60 years. However, the government's decision would not be applicable for the homeopathy and unani doctors working in state-run hospitals, an official release said.

The announcement was made in the Odisha Assembly by Health and Family Welfare minister Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak.

Nayak said, the state government had earlier enhanced the retirement age of the doctors working in three state-run medical colleges from 60 years to 65 years.

Sources said of the 4,805 sanctioned strength of doctors, about 1,000 posts remained vacant for a long time while about 950 doctors were on leave.

Hakim Nabina devoted his life to heal the ailing

THE HINDU
Updated: June 22, 2014 17:51 IST
Down Memory Lane
Of healing and healers
R. V. SMITH


An unsung hero, Hakim Nabina devoted his life to heal the ailing

Hakim Nabina has passed into legend. Three years older than Hakim Ajmal Khan, one was reminded of him when Ajmal Khan’s great-granddaughter came for admission to Hamdard University last week, accompanied by her father. While Ajmal Khan’s name lives on beyond his ancestral haveli, Sharif Manzil in Ballimaran, Hakim Nabina had no fixed abode and believed to have been born in the Walled City too, got most of his fame in South Delhi where he was brought by some dealers in Unani medicine.

Born in the same year as Rabindranath Tagore, he was 105 when Dr. S. A. Ali of Hamdard met him in 1965 to seek medication for a digestive problem. The hakim, who had probably been born blind or had lost his vision in childhood, felt the patient’s pulse and diagnosed that his heart and liver were in good trim but not his digestive system. “Did you by any chance eat arbi (yams)?” he enquired. Dr Ali confessed that he had in fact had a piece of the vegetable though he was not fond of it. The hakim told him to have light food in future and prescribed some medicine which cured his ailment. Syed Ausaf Ali, himself an octogenarian now, says Nabina lived at Hazrat Pattey Shah’s dargah, behind Humayun’s Tomb. What he prescribed was dispensed by dealers in Unani drugs. When someone complained that the charges were very high, he advised them not to go to the dispensers but take medicine from him directly.

Pattey Shah or the saint amid tree leaves was actually named Shamsuddin Ataullah and died in AD 1300 during the reign of Alauddin Khilji. He got the nickname because whenever Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya visited his khanqah or hospice, he would hide behind bushes and tree leaves, saying he was not worthy of coming face-to-face with the Auliya. This is what has been affirmed in Sadia Dehlvi’s book on the Dargahs of Delhi. It is said that the Shah belonged to the Chishti silsila or order of saints. “During the day he would light a fire and cover himself with its ashes, while at night he slept in a grave-like hollow (something emulated by the eccentric Spanish painter Salvador Dali, who spent his nights in a coffin). When he died Hazrat Nizamuddin led the funeral prayers as per the Shah’s last wish. Hakim Nabina seems to have developed a spiritual rapport with Pattey Shah and lived most of his long life at the latter’s shrine. When he died is not known but it was probably during Indira Gandhi’s first prime ministership, which would mean that he was nearly 110 years old at that time.

The hakim is not to be confused with Hafiz Nabina Doliwale, the blind mendicant who lived under a tree near the southern gate of the Jama Masjid. Nobody knew his real name also, except that he was one who could recite the Quran by heart (Hafiz), was blind (Nabina), wore no clothes and loved to travel free in a doli or palanquin. He and Hakim Nabina were both born in the same year (1860), when Bahadur Shah Zafar was passing his last days in Rangoon. But Hafiz Nabina died at the age of 87 much before the hakim sahib. Everybody in the city knew him and he also finds mention in Ahmed Ali’s “Twilight in Delhi” as he often visited the hero of the book, Mir Nihal. He was regarded as a majzoob (a man possessed), lost in himself and supposed to be in contact with the jinns, without much care for hygiene.

However Hakim Nabina, despite his mystical leanings, never gave the impression that he was a majzoob. His direct communion was with Pattey Shah and he passed his life in the service of those who came to him to be healed. That he could tell a patient what his illness was merely by touching him and pointing out, “Thou ailest here and here,” was a sign of his deep knowledge of human nature and anatomy and the Unani system of medication. Like Hafiz Nabina, he was a recluse but of a different sort who did not discard the ways of the world in matters of dress, behaviour and etiquette. Old-timers remember him as a worthy contemporary of Hakim Ajmal Khan, who had acquired the halo of Massiha (messiah) of the ailing populace!

Monday, June 23, 2014

Ayush department of Karnataka government in a bind

Central Council of Indian Medicine fiat puts Ayush department of Karnataka government in a bind
Jaideep Shenoy,TNN | Jun 22, 2014, 06.32 PM IST


MANGALORE: A fiat by Central Council of Indian Medicine (CCIM) directing students to compulsorily pass Urdu entrance examination before seeking admission to Unani course has put the state government in a bind. A directive by department of Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy (AYUSH) to introduce this rule from the current academic year as per the above fiat has left the Karnataka Examinations Authority in confusion.

Moving in to damage control mode from media reports in this regard, minister for health and family welfare U T Khader who go in touch with Vijayakumar Gogi, director, AYUSH and sough clarifications said the department is merely acting on instructions from the Council. "Urdu and Arabic is the base to understanding the nuances of this system of medicine based on which the Council has come out with such a recommendation," Khader said.

Noting that examination, as and when it is held will be a basic test of a student's knowledge of Urdu taught at the 10th standard level, Khader said he would get in touch with Dr Harsha Vardhan, union minister for health and sort out this confusion. "It does not make sense to implement such a rule without due notice," Khader said, adding the department would appeal to the union minister to defer its implementation by at least three years.

Incidentally, this CCIM passed this directive when the UPA government was in power and this makes the situation all the more piquant for the department of AYUSH in general and the state government in particular. The department wrote a letter to KEA to conduct the Urdu examination leaving the latter non-plussed. Faced with the prospects of implementing it, the minister now feels that it is best left for Dr Harsha Vardhan to take a call on it.

Initially directing Gogi to keep the file on this directive pending, Khader later said it makes sense to thrash out a solution by discussing the issue with the union ministry of health. "We can ask the principals of respective unani colleges to conduct the test at their level," he said, adding the modalities of the same will be discussed and implemented so as to best protect the interests of students who opt for unani course through Common Entrance Test.

Saturday, June 21, 2014

travel every month to treat patients

At 82, he travels to remote villages every month to treat patients
Written by Anuradha Mascarenhas | Pune | June 20, 2014 3:59 am

Dr S L Kate during a function at Sane Guruji Hospital in Hadapsar on Thursday. (Pavan Khengre)
Summary
He has worked for more than five decades, detecting patients and pleading with govts to set up treatment units for them
A first for India: Unrelated cord blood transplant treats sickle cell disease
Staff shortage forcing private hospitals to hire ‘doctors’ with no degrees
Children deaths in Gorakhpur: A dissolving faith,an enduring mystery
At 82, Dr S L Kate feels he still hasn’t done enough for patients with sickle-cell disease. Once every month he travels to the remotest village of Roshmal Budruk in Dhadgaon taluka to help find new ways and means to alleviate their pain – the latest being the centre’s Ayurveda Unani Siddha Homeopathy (AYUSH) project to find a drug formulation prepared from bel fruit (wood apple) that can help improve the quality of life of these patients.
“Estimates show that of the 1.5-lakh tribal population in Dhadgaon, at least 20 per cent are sickle-cell disease carriers and one per cent are sufferers. There are at least 153 villages in Dhadgaon, and we have reached out to five- six patients in each village, offering counselling, blood tests and other laboratory investigations,” Kate told Newsline. It is a hilly terrain located between the third and sixth ranges of Satpura, 600 km from Pune, where 96 per cent of the population belongs to tribal groups.
“It takes more than 16 hours to reach the village, but bi-monthly sickle-cell diagnostic and treatment camps are conducted,” said Dr Gunvant Yeola, who along with other team members accompany Kate to help patients with sickle-cell anaemia. Four years ago, UNESCO declared June 19 as World Sickle Day. In sickle-cell anaemia, the most common form of the disease, the body forms sickle-shaped red blood cells that contain abnormal haemoglobin. These red blood cells are less functional and block the flow of blood, causing pain and organ damage, Yeola explained.
When sickle-cell disease was first identified in 1948, patients did not have much hope to live past childhood. While National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) has taken up the sickle-cell disease as a healthcare concern, much needs to be done in terms of genetic counselling and intervention programmes, experts said.
“In the absence of a cure, most of the patients lead a miserable life. This is my passion, and I hope to help curb the spread of sickle-cell anaemia,” said Kate,who has worked for more than five decades identifying the disease, detecting patients and pleading with successive governments to set up treatment units for them. As a lecturer at B J Medical College, he visited Bhils and Pawaras tribal communities in Dhule, and subsequently joined Dr S T alias Dada Gujar at the Maharashtra Arogya Mandal in Hadapsar to provide better healthcare facilities to patients.
According to a survey, the estimated number of people suffering from sickle-cell anaemia is nearly 2.5 lakh across Maharashtra, while there are 10 lakh in the country. At a function organised on the occasion of World Sickle Cell Day at Sane Guruji Hospital in Hadapsar on Thursday, Dr R M Dhere, scientist at Serum Institute of India, handed over the key of a utility and travel

Friday, June 13, 2014

Plants Can Produce Species Without Sex

How plants can produce species without sex
IANS | London June 13, 2014 Last Updated at 12:54 IST

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Plants can transfer their entire genetic material to a partner in an asexual manner, research reveals.

German scientists at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology have shown for the first time that new species can be generated in an asexual manner as well.

It was generally believed that a combination of desired traits can be obtained by grafting, but there is no exchange or recombination of genetic material - so-called horizontal gene transfer - between the grafted plants.

"In our previous work, we were able to prove that, contrary to the generally accepted dogma, there is horizontal gene transfer of chloroplast genes at the contact zone between grafted plants," said lead researcher Ralph Bock.

Now we wanted to investigate if there is a transfer of genetic information between the nuclei as well, Bock added.

The researchers introduced resistance genes against two different antibiotics into nuclear genomes of the tobacco species Nicotiana tabacum and Nicotiana glauca, which usually cannot be crossed.

Afterwards, Nicotiana glauca was grafted onto Nicotiana tabacum or the other way round.

After fusion had occurred, scientists excised tissue at the contact zone and cultivated it on a growth medium containing both antibiotics, so that only cells containing both resistance genes and thus, DNA from both species, should survive.

The scientists succeeded in growing up numerous doubly resistant plantlets.

"We managed to produce allopolyploid plants (having two or more complete sets of chromosomes derived from different species) without sexual reproduction", said Sandra Stegemann, joint first author of the study.

When the scientists grew their new plants in the greenhouse, it became obvious that they combined characteristics of both progenitor species.

Also, the new plants grew remarkably faster than their parents.

"Grafting two species and selecting for horizontal genome transfer could become an interesting method for breeders who could use this approach to create new crop plants with higher yields and improved properties," researchers concluded.

Wednesday, June 11, 2014

inherent power to deal with many illnesses.

‘Medical Council of India is a source of corruption’
DC | Teena Thacker | June 11, 2014, 06.06 am IST

Union health minister Harsh Vardhan (Photo: Deccan Chronicle)

An ENT surgeon by profession, Union health minister Harsh Vardhan, who is fondly called ‘Doctor Saab’, has never lost an election, be it the Lok Sabha or state Assembly. He spoke to Teena Thacker on the ‘health for all’ policy and how he intends to improve deteriorating health services in the country.

To fulfil Narendra Modi government’s “health for all” agenda, how have you chalked out your priorities?
In a subject like health one cannot have priorities. Everything has to be your priority and you have to work accordingly.

For instance, in a body, brain is a priority, but you cannot ignore the heart or any limb for that matter.

I feel that all issues are equally important and that’s how I have started working. I am reviewing everything, trying to monitor, trying to push things, trying to convert ideas into future plans.

What is your main focus for the first 100 days?
There is nothing called an “agenda for 100 days”. I don’t know from where this term has come.

I have never said anything about “100 days” nor has the Prime Minister announced anything. Our job is to deliver within 60 months, that’s the five-year period.

If there is an agenda for 100 days, for me it’s to put everything in order. My target would be to at least monitor everything in health in 100 days, give my ideas, plan out for everything.

Even if you think of opening a dispensary you cannot do it in 100 days. So, for me, 100 days is basically the time to review everything, strengthen everything and make a humble beginning.

What can be done to tackle the problem of shortage of doctors, specially in rural areas?
You cannot tackle this problem from one angle. Doctors also have their problems, as does the system.

There are many doctors who are ready to go and serve in rural areas, but they do not have adequate facilities there for their children and family. We have to find a way out.

In the next couple of years we want to convert many district hospitals into medical colleges. This entails improving facilities, getting more manpower. I also feel that doctors of Ayush (homeopathy) are underutilised.

They have to be given some sort of training so that they can be utilised at the healthcare centres. They have to play a bigger role in the system.

I am all for promoting Ayush in a big way which has not been done in the past. Despite the fact that I am a doctor of modern medicine, I feel that Unani, yoga, naturopathy and ayurveda have an inherent power to deal with many illnesses.

These indigenous, traditional systems are complete systems. If I look at the history of the Indian system of medicine, it was rich in knowledge.

So much so that the Khalifa of Baghdad got this knowledge translated into Arabic. Even the modern system of medicine has evolved out of that knowledge. This is precious and we need to use it in a big way.

We have to try and get rid of the bottlenecks so that there is an integration of all the system of medicine because no single system is capable of treating all illnesses.

Former health ministers tried to introduce compulsory rural posting and even proposed new courses for doctors which would qualify them to work in primary health centres. However, the schemes could never be started because of resistance from doctors and medical associations. How do you plan to improve the doctor-patient ratio?
I would not consider a programme less than an MBBS. I would not like to compromise on the quality of medical education, but I would certainly like to encourage doctors of Ayush.

They are qualified, have done four-and-a-half year long courses. We just have to train them a little bit.

I too feel that doctors must spend some time in rural areas. Normally this is a part of their internship, but to solve the problem of shortage of doctors, both doctors and medical institutes have to take a broader approach.

Of course they have their own problems, and those need to be resolved, but they have to pay back to the society. I will soon have the modalities worked out.

My approach is different — rather than forcing, if you deliberate and brainstorm, you can achieve things.

I will build consensus before I introduce anything. I will convince medical associations to further convince the medical fraternity to serve in rural areas.

Even places like All-India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) have a lot of vacancies. What is the core problem?
It is true that there is a problem in the selection process. They are quite cumbersome.

These procedures will have to looked at again, and this requires a multi-centric approach.

To have more manpower we are working on three-four things: We plan to convert district hospitals into medical colleges; we are going to have more AIIMS like institutes, plus 50 cancer institutes.

Even in these institutes I have directed that public health institutes should be within the campus. I have said that all the institutions should have mechanisms to introduce public health specialists.

What do you think about medical education in our country? What changes need to be brought in to improve the quality of medical education?
Medical education has been neglected. For a long time the Medical Council of India (MCI) has been a big source of corruption.

I am in favour of everything which is positive. There are many good things that have been ignored, like the common medical entrance.

The novel idea to have a single test was the most ideal thing. However, many states resisted and went to the court.

I shall relook at the proposal and see what can be done to introduce it again. I strongly feel that it is the most ideal thing, for a very simple reason that private medical education is very expensive.

Will you restructure the existing Medical Council of India? Do you think the health minister should have the authority to remove MCI officials, including the president and vice-president?
I will go to the depth of this issue. It’s a big Pandora’s box and I don’t want to get stuck in the beginning.

I do not want to encroach upon the autonomy of MCI but I will also not allow them to be unprofessional.

We will have to develop a mechanism to ensure “no corruption”. Autonomy does not mean that one is free.

I am right now focusing on National Health Missions. Once my basic work is done there, I will get the bottom of other issues.