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April 01, 2013
Background: The GeneXpert® MTB/RIF (hereinafter Xpert) test has demonstrated sensitive detection of tuberculosis (TB) and Rifampicin resistance directly from untreated sputum in less than two hours. India is currently drafting the third phase of its Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme...
January 01, 2013
On August 29, 2012, a court in Ahmedabad ruled in a case involving 61 individuals accused of the massacre of 96 Muslims in Naroda Patiya, Gujarat, on February 28, 2002. The massacres occurred a day after a terrible fire engulfed a train near Godhra, Gujarat, in which 59 karsevaks (volunteer worke...
January 01, 2013
The arrest and subsequent humiliation of Indian athlete and international medal winner Pinki Pramanik has violated her right to privacy, bodily integrity, and basic human dignity.It has also raised important and often sidelined questions about gender, sports and the way the world is organised.Twe...
January 01, 2013
Lay people often wonder at all the fuss about identifying the biological sex of an individual. They may recall a granny or midwife, immediately after a delivery, even in the dim light, declaring with ease that it’s a girl, or a boy, to the rejoicing crowd waiting eagerly outside the delivery room...
January 01, 2013
The author conducted a voluntary Medical Humanities (MH) module at Pokhara, Nepal, in 2007 as a curriculum innovation project for a fellowship in health sciences education. He conducted a module for faculty members at KIST Medical College (KISTMC), Lalitpur, Nepal, in 2008. The modules used liter...
January 01, 2013
The practice of medicine is an art as well as a science. As doctors diagnose illness and treat patients day after day, they constantly interweave the social, psychological, ethical and scientific aspects of clinical practice. However, the humanistic values necessary for this approach are generall...
October 01, 2012
The first part of this paper explores what we mean by the word ‘sensitising’ and presents an argument for conceiving of ‘sensitising’ in a way that respects the intellectual as well as the healing roles of medical practitioners, while taking the concept further as ‘ informed reflection’. It also ...
October 01, 2012
Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI), New Delhi, India and Emory University, Atlanta, USA, are lead partners in the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute /UnitedHealth funded Center of Excellence (COE) in Cardio-metabolic Risk Reduction in South Asia which provides a vehicle for the develo...
October 01, 2012
Medical practice in India is under intense scrutiny, and hardly a day goes by without another scandal, about poor treatment meted out to patients, absence of doctors from the workplace in rural areas, fraud in the medical education system, and so on. With rising costs, access to modern medicine i...
October 01, 2012
The medical humanities have been introduced in medical curricula over the past 30 years in the western world. Having medical humanities in a medical school curriculum can nurture positive attitudes in the regular work of a clinician and contribute equally to personality development. Though substa...