Medicos oppose Rural posting

Medical teachers and students in the state have strongly opposed a move by Union health minister Anbumani Ramadoss to extend the five-and-a-half-year MBBS course by a year, with the last year as mandatory rural posting. They have said that the move will be counter-productive since fresh medical graduates will not be able to deliver the desired results.
“A fresh MBBS graduate is too inexperienced to handle crisis situations in a rural set-up, which will be unfair to the rural population,’’ a senior professor said.
Ramadoss is considering extending the course following recommendations by the National Rural Health Mission. A month ago, he had set up a high-level committee headed by additional director general of health services R Samba Siva Rao to ascertain the views of undergraduate and post-graduate teachers, medical teachers, parents and associated groups before implementation of the rural posting for medical graduates.
Accordingly Rao, on Wednesday, held a marathon meeting with medical teachers and students from 42 medical colleges across the state, senior officials of the medical education department and the directorate of medical education and research at JJ Hospital. Rao explained the proposal and said, “Our rural health care system is weak and we want it to strengthen in a time-bound period. Hence Ramadoss, on the recommendation of the rural health mission, has mooted the new concept.’’
However, medical teachers opposed the move and also raised the following objections. Students who want to continue post-graduate studies will be affected as a gap of one year in a non-academic environment will have an adverse effect on their studies.
The course is already long and adding a year is unfair. Making it compulsory with a meagre pay or stipend amounts to exploitation. It is likely that if this scheme is implemented, the number of posts in rural areas may be insufficient to accommodate all the graduates. In its report, NHRM has said that public health centres across India are poorly managed owing to acute shortage of manpower. In Maharashtra, out of the 6,000 public health centres, there are no doctors at at least 1,600 centres, while at 2,000 centres, the medical officers are appointed on adhoc basis for 11 months.
(Source)

Aids Pill

The US government approved a novel anti-AIDS pill on Friday, offering a new option for hard-to-treat patients.

Manufacturer Merck & Co. said Isentress should be on pharmacy shelves within two weeks.

The AIDS virus uses three different enzymes to reproduce and infect cells. Numerous drugs are available that target two of those enzymes, called protease and reverse transcriptase.

Isentress is the first in a new class of medicines that blocks the third enzyme, called integrase. Added to "cocktails" of other HIV medicines, the drug can lower the amount of HIV in the blood and help infection-fighting immune cells rebound.

HIV mutates rapidly to resist various treatments, and the Food and Drug Administration approved use of Isentress in patients over age 16 whose blood tests show they are resistant to common older medications.

Side effects include diarrhea, nausea, headache and itching.

Patients take Isentress, also known as raltegravir, twice a day. A Merck spokeswoman said the drug would cost $27 a day, or $9,855 a year _ in the range of other competitors.

It is the second novel HIV drug to win FDA approval in two months. Pfizer Inc.'s Selzentry works by yet another method, blocking a passage that HIV often uses to enter white blood cells.

Lead India..letter from Times of India

Dear 'Doctors For You' Volunteer,
Sub: Doctors For You-TOI partnership for Lead India

It is my privilege, on behalf of The Times of India, to seek your participation in Lead India, the biggest search for India’s future leaders. Doctors For You has joined hands with The Times of India in this unique movement to positively impact this country’s political landscape.

Lead India seeks concerned and action-oriented people like you to nominate the best names for India’s next generation of leaders. If you have it in you, please come forward and rise. Spread over three phases, Lead India is seeking nominations in the first phase that ends on Sep 7, 2007. All entries will be screened to arrive at city-wise representatives. Eight candidates will be short-listed from each city, in the second phase, followed by the final national round to elect the Lead India winner.

The process of selection will entail a 360-degree evaluation of candidates on political leadership – like the ability to conceive goals for the nation, a sense of social responsibility, the capability to translate the vision for the nation into specific, pragmatic action points, the ability to rally people around ideas, the ability to execute, and resilience. The public at large, and an eminent jury, will judge each candidate’s performance.

What awaits the eventual Leader will be a handsome corpus of Rs 50 lakh for funding a public project of his choice and an entry into the Leadership Development Programme at the John F Kennedy School of Political Leadership. This is besides the once-in-a-lifetime chance to short-circuit the arduous political route and be pitched right in the arena.

To find out more about Lead India, please visit www.lead.timesofindia.com. You can also browse through related Times news stories and interactive features at the website.

Top Medical Colleges (MBBS) in India

1)AIIMS - All India Institute of Medical Sciences Delhi 2) CMC - Christian Medical College,Vellore 3)AFMC -Armed Forces Medical College,Pune 4)JIPMER, Pondicherry
5)Seth G.S. Medical College,Mumbai 6)Maulana Azad Medical College,Delhi 7)Grants Medical College Mumbai 8)St John’s,Bangalore 9)Kasturba Medical College Manipal
10)B.J. Medical College Pune 11)King George’s Medical College,Lucknow 12)Calcutta Medical College,Calcutta 13)Bangalore Medical College,Bangalore 14Gandhi Medical College, Hyderabad 15)Christian Medical College,Ludhiana 16)Osmania Medical College, Hyderabad 17)Madras Medical College Chennai 18)Institute of Medical Science, BHU,Varanasi 19)B.J. Medical College, Ahmedabad 20)Government Medical College,Nagpur 21)Government Medical College,Mysore 22)Sri Ramachandra Medical College,Chennai
23)Stanley Medical College, Chennai 24)L.T.M. Medical College Mumbai 25)Lady Hardings,Delhi .
(Source): As per Outlook July 17, 2006 issue. The Survey was carried out taking into consideration - Intellectual Capital, Infrastructure and facilities, pedagogic systems and processes, and placements. This survey was for for Undergraduate MBBS Programs.

Result of ASSO-CET-2007 and MHT-CET-2007

As ASSO-CET-2007 and MHT-CET-2007 exams for admissions to Medical colleges(MBBS/BDS/BAMS/BHMS/B.Pharm) in Maharashtra are over,students must be busy in finding Model answers to Multiple Choices Questions(MCQ'S) asked in those exams.
The result of ASSO-CET-2007 and MHT-CET-2007 is expected to be declared on 15th June 2007.Till then keep your fingers crossed.
You will updates regarding the results on this site.

Pune Doctors pledge eyes!

Although there is a need for an estimated two lakh corneas annually to restore vision of the corneal blind, barely 24,000 corneas are collected through eye donation in the country.

In an exemplary initiative to address this shortfall, 90 doctors from Pune have now pledged their eyes after death.

The doctors have also decided to strengthen the eye donation campaign in Pune by encouraging patients to pledge their eyes and by guiding them.