HOME
Category: Research Articles
April 01, 1999
The plight of patients in private ICU-ICCU hospitals in the city of Mumbai is pathetic. This fact provided reason enough to study the subject. An examination of the conditions of these specialist units demonstrates that they violate the most fundamental human right — the right to life — and the d...
April 01, 1999
Economics may be a mysterious subject to many of us. Still, Amartya Sen's thesis of poverty and hunger is like one's grandmother's logic presented with mathematical precision and scientific rigour.
April 01, 1999
It is common in contemporary clinical practice to be able to keep a person's body alive after the functions of the brain which animate and give character to that life have been irreversibly destroyed. In many countries there are brain stem death tests which allow us to come to a reliable clinical...
July 01, 1999
I would like to use this opportunity to talk about the values which Prof. Mukhopadhaya has been trying to instill in us and which, I believe, need to be reiterated if we want to practice our specialty to serve the masses of our vast country with its glaring contrasts between the rich and the poor
July 01, 1999
Sex workers share with other members of the urban poor, a deep distrust of the medical profession. Interviews with women in prostitution in three cities — Bombay, Calcutta and Delhi — and parts of Maharashtra — Kohlapur, Ahmednagar and Yavatmal simultaneously bring out aspects of what are uniquel...
January 01, 1999
We swear by 'science', though the very word begs for a precise definition. Allopathy (read 'modern medicine') dominates the therapeutic scene because of its ostensible scientific approach. Its hegemony may be gleaned from the fact that the leading text, Clinical Pharmacology, asserts non...
January 01, 1999
Technology and research using human tissues raise many legal and ethical problems. Who really owns the "bits and pieces", or body tissues supplied to laboratories? What is their responsibility and to whom? Who owns the report and with what rights? What about confidentiality?
January 01, 1999
The drug industry, the medical profession and the patient have a unique relationship. The industry makes products which it cannot sell to the patient (consumer) directly. On the other hand, the medical profession cannot treat the patient without drugs produced by the industry. Thus the industry a...
January 01, 1999
The process of learning involves an 'other'. The other could be a person like a teacher or fellow student, or it could be a thing like a book or computer. Learning medicine inevitably involves the patients whom we treat. The question is: when a junior doctor is operating for the very first time i...
October 01, 1998
How can equity, social iustice and human rights be incorporated into public health programmes? Wishwas Rane and N S Deodhar make some suggestions