Health

KEY POINTS

Merits

·        To rural and tribal people – Indian rural society is deprived of MBBS trained doctors.

·        The main motive of Bridge Course for Ayush doctors is to create an accessibility of trained doctors that will provide integrated treatment.

·        Thousands of Ayush practitioners will help in saving lives by dispensing basic medical service in remote regions and villages.

·        To Ayush Doctors – The Ayush doctors will gain additional knowledge as compared to the Allopathy doctors.

·        Moreover, their reputation will enhance in the society.

·        To Allopathy pharmaceuticals – As the Allopathic, Ayurveda and Homoeopathic doctors together will be prescribing allopathy medicines, the revenues for these pharmaceuticals will apparently upsurge.

·        To medical colleges of India – Since the private Ayush medical colleges of India are a legalised short cut to practice allopathy, they will get more student admissions.

Demerits

·        To Allopathy Doctors – The Bridge Course promotes a cross-learning pathway.

·        It is believed that it will undermine the alternative medical streams.

·        It is a denigration of professional and trained allopathic doctors.

·        To patients – It will lead to the degradation of homoeopathic system of medicine.

·        Moreover, the patients will receive substandard medical services.

·        To Ayush doctors – The medical profession of homeopathy is likely to lose its charm, if it will integrate the allopathic medicines as well.

·        Moreover, studying one system and practicing other is unethical.

·        To Medical Profession – The Bridge Course for Ayush doctors will have a tremendous negative impact on medical profession and will give rise to corruption in the medical field.

Is such integration effective?

·        Traditional and scientific systems follow contrasting definitions of ‘truth’.

·        In the former, truth is what one is taught and is believed subjectively.

·        It need not and cannot be verified by research.

·        In the latter, truth is what has been verified through experimentation.

·        By definition and practice, objective evidence can be reconfirmed by anyone who repeats experiment.

·        Verifiability in modern medicine helps to scrutinise a physician’s diagnosis and treatment against the system’s norms.

·        Liability to negligence arises if norms were not followed; if guilty the physician can be penalised.

·        In other words, scientific medicine demands ‘accountability’ on the part of the physician — for ‘correct’ diagnosis and treatment.

·        Since such verifications and detailed classifications are not present in traditional medical systems, a physician diagnoses and treats as best as he/she could, but without verifiability or accountability.

·        Fortunately, therapies in traditional medicines are generally harmless — hence patients do not face much risk.

·        But the scientific system is far too complex to be mastered by one person; hence the need for specialities and specialisations worries such integration.

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