PUDUCHERRY: Eminent Cardiologist and former Vice-Chancellor, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, B.M. Hegde, has said that the system of medical education in India also could look to including other forms of medicine in the curriculum. Addressing graduating students at the Jawaharlal Institute of Post-graduate Medical Education and Research (JIPMER), Mr. Hegde said that medical students in U.S., U.K. and Japan were learning alternative systems of medicine also as part of their curriculum.

"West is looking to us. But unfortunately, though forms such as Ayurveda and Siddha originated from India, we are not teaching them to our students. We need to look at the whole human being. We need to heal the patient and that calls for wholesome treatment," he pointed out.

Medicine, he said, was a calling and not a business. "This medi-business is so lucrative that young doctors think that becoming a doctor is to make a lot of money, have a big car, a spacious house and so on. But that is not so. Happiness is in healing the patient, his immune system. Giving a kind word, a nice smile and a pat on the back of the patient if need be is an important part of the treatment. But we don't do that because we don't have the time, we are in a rat race."

He said that doctors in the U.S. and U.K. did not have any time for patients and that it was unfortunate that we too were trying to follow that example.

The JIPMER Director, K.S.V.K. Subba Rao, said that the construction of super specialty block, trauma care centre, regional cancer centre and college of nursing and hostel had already commenced on the campus.

The total cost of the projects would be Rs.173 crore and the departments would be ready within two years' time. Medical Superintendent of the Institute A.K. Das and Dean K.S. Reddy were also present on the occasion.

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