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Category: Letters
April 01, 2014
This is with reference to a news item in the November 11, 2013 issue of the Times of India, "Organ Donation pledge on I-Cards". According to the newspaper report, the move to encourage organ donation has been initiated by the state public health minister, Suresh Shetty. Mumbai University has issu...
April 01, 2014
ecent media reports of a startling number of hysterectomies being performed in various Indian states have raised ethical concern in the public health community. In our view, this is a perplexing health policy issue as it could result in serious side effects being apprehended in large numbers of y...
April 01, 2014
Ek Thi Daayan, a horror film with supernatural content, was released in April 2013. The protagonist in this motion picture believes that his stepmother is a daayan (witch), who is eventually shown to kill his sister. His father dies of a cardiac arrest on seeing that his wife has turned ...
April 01, 2014
Nowadays, Iranians are being subjected to the strictest sanctions ever imposed against a country. The political deadlock between six international powers and Iranian officials has resulted in a proliferation of sanctions touching all aspects of Iranian activities. Economic sanctions have caused i...
July 22, 2014
I faced a serious ethical dilemma while attending a couple of cases of dengue fever at a ward in the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) area during September 2013. Two patients had tested positive for dengue IgM antibody by MAC ELISA. Adjacent to their house was a vacant plot of around 1500 sq f...
July 22, 2014
An editorial by Dr George Thomas in IJME rightly points out the flaws in the constitution of the Medical Council of India (MCI). Amendments are made over and over again, but the need of the hour is to make real changes in the existing system. The conduct of the elections and government control ov...
January 01, 2014
As Syria completes two years of western sanctions (2011–13), their dramatic effects on health are being highlighted with first reports of starvation deaths among children in the suburbs of Damascus. Although heavy fighting has taken place in this area, experts had predicted for some ...
January 01, 2014
The working group of the World Medical Association (WMA) has published a revised draft of the Declaration of Helsinki for public consultation till June 15, 2013. There are many positive changes in the document with respect to compensation, education of investigators, informed consent in the case ...
January 01, 2014
While most professions have national level bodies governing the pay structure of their teachers, there is no functional body to govern the pay of medical teachers. The result is that the net pay of teachers in the central institutions (such as AIIMS, and the medical colleges of Chandigarh U...
October 01, 2013
Communicating with the parents of children who are extremely sick or dying in the intensive care unit (ICU) is an extremely challenging task. The physician in charge of intensive care, apart from administering the routine medical treatment, has other vital roles to play, such as communicating the...