PG Times

Historians have long debated the role that Dr. Franklin played in identifying the double helix. A new opinion essay argues that she was an “equal contributor.”   On April 25, 1953, James Watson and Francis Crick published  a landmark paper  in Nature, proposing the double helix as the long elusive structure of DNA, a discovery that a decade later earned the men the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. In the final paragraph of the paper, they acknowledged that they had been “stimulated by a knowledge of the general nature of the unpublished experimental results and ideas” of two scientists at King’s College London, Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin. In the 70 years since, a less flattering story has emerged, thanks in large part to Dr. Watson’s own best-selling book, “The Double Helix.” In the book, he not only wrote disparagingly of Dr. Franklin, whom he called Rosy, but also said that he and Dr. Crick had used her data without her knowledge. “Rosy, of course, did ...

How Army doctors set a record of the world’s highest-altitude major surgery S.G. Vombatkere The soldier protects our nation’s borders with determination, grit and courage, living and fighting all along our Himalayan borders from Ladakh in the west to Arunachal in the east. A soldier’s life in forward areas is extremely tough. In high-altitude areas (HAA, in Army parlance), it is doubly so because the oxygen intake is halved. Low oxygen, combined with sub-zero temperatures further lowered by wind-chill, seriously affects physical efficiency, as anyone who has served at altitudes of over 12,000 ft (3,700 m) knows. Even routine activities are necessarily slow and difficult, sometimes even painful. Prolonged isolation and loneliness are an additional psychological burden. Extreme cold, low oxygen intake and treacherous terrain combine as an ever-present risk to life and limb for every soldier, quite apart from the risks of the enemy’s bullet, grenade, bomb and shell. In these harsh...

By Dr. Amrinder Bajaj The writer is Unit Head, obstetrics and gynaecology, Max Shalimar Bagh and Pitampura. First Fortis, then Max and now BL Kapoor Hospital have fallen prey to slander. All three hospitals serve thousands of patients everyday in Delhi and NCR. The latest video doing the rounds is of Bobby Kataria and his mob laying siege to Balaji Action Hospital – 1.9 million FB views in 48 hours – to exploit the death of a six-day-old baby, probably for political gains. Hospitals have become arenas for populist political battles where slogans and protests, threats and abuses are hurled at random. They are ignited and stoked by an irresponsible section of media that sensationalises without verifying facts. Much hue and cry was made of the ‘live baby’ wrapped callously in a plastic bag at Max Shalimar Bagh when it was a mere five months (22 weeks) old fetus that had negligible chances of survival. Such fetuses can go into a state of suspended animation for a varying period...

The apex court has expressed its inability to provide any record on long summer break under the RTI application. Informing the Chief Information Commissioner in response to RTI activist Subhash Chandra Agrawal's application, it said "Information relating to practice of summer vacation etc, there is no record available. For about seven long decades since Independence, the Supreme Court of India and other high courts have been following the practice of more than a month-long summer vacation and week-long Holi, Diwali and Dussehra holidays but have no record about how and when the practice started. The apex court has expressed its inability to provide any record on long summer break under the RTI application. Informing the Chief Information Commissioner in response to RTI activist Subhash Chandra Agrawal's application, it said "Information relating to practice of summer vacation etc, there is no record available." However, the top court's registry wo...

The autopsy of AIIMS junior resident Sarvanan Ganeshan, who died under mysterious circumstances last week, indicates that he did not commit suicide, said a senior doctor who has seen the report. The circumstances in which Ganeshan's body was found also clearly indicated that he did not commit suicide and died an unnatural death, the doctor, who requested not to be named, told PG Times. "The report says there was no external or internal injury. There was no substantial evidence of presence of drugs where his body was found," he said. "Also, the door was not locked, which usually does not happen if some one commits suicide." The doctors will, however, consult the police once again before coming to a definitive conclusion, he said. Also awaited is the toxicology report, which may take a few months before it is submitted to the police. "Such situations are very surprising and take time to yield exact clues. However, the current situation ind...

Skilled professionals get higher salaries in private sector Lower-ranked Central government employees draw significantly higher salaries than their counterparts in the private sector but in the upper tier the reverse is true, says an IIM-Ahmedabad study commissioned by the Seventh Pay Commission. The ‘Salary Comparison Study’ conducted in October 2015 examined 40 professions, including nurses, teachers, scientists, electricians, drivers and clerks. It found the salaries of gardeners, clerks, receptionists and drivers lower in the private sector. For instance, a driver in the private sector typically earns around Rs. 12,000 a month, while an entry-level driver in government service earns around Rs. 25,000, including additional benefits and allowances. Even qualified professionals working with the government at the entry level are paid more. Government doctors with an MBBS degree get Rs. 80,500 a month while their counterparts in the private sector are paid only Rs. 50,...

A well-known pathologist in the state capital has been served a divorce notice by her husband, a radiologist, because she refused to abort the female foetus that she was carrying. The wife, Dr Prakriti Shukla, has now lodged a complaint with the state medical council and district magistrate, which is the appropriate authority for the PCPNDT Act. She has accused her in-laws of violating provisions in Pre-conception Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (prevention of sex selective abortions) or PCPNDT act. The registrar, state medical council has formed a committee to investigate the complaint. According to reports, Dr Shukla married Dr Tushar Ojha in December 2014. She became pregnant in July 2015 and was forced to undergo an ultrasonography test at her father-in-law’s diagnostic centre. “After the test, the behaviour of my in-laws and my husband changed. My husband asked me to abort the child and tried to convince me we were not in a position to have the baby. I found the behaviou...

State apathy coupled with inadequate infrastructure and lack of monetary incentives have reduced medical research to a pitiable state in Bengal. Huge patient load and frequent transfers in government hospitals have contributed to this downfall.

A building under construction at ESI-PGIMSR, Joka, Kolkata. The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has pulled up the Employees' State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) for an ill-planned entry into medical education. CAG in its special audit of medical education projects of ESIC has said that the decision to open medical colleges was ill-planned and no due diligence was done by ESIC while its move to exit it was for reducing losses and liabilities. The CAG pointed out that all medical education projects taken up, except two, were behind schedule. The total cost of all the projects was revised from Rs 8,611.94 crore to Rs 11,997.15 crore resulting into cost overrun of Rs 3,385.21 crore. It also noted that the corporation had sanctioned 17 out of 21 medical education projects and started construction of 16 medical colleges and incurred an expenditure of Rs 1,021.72 crore prior to the amendment of the Act. Employees State Insurance Scheme is mandated to provide both...

In the world of private medical colleges and Medical Council of India's (MCI) inspection of these colleges, doctors who are assistant professors in one inspection can become resident doctors in the next. Despite this fraud being pointed out to the MCI, no action has been taken so far. In a letter to MCI president Dr Jayshree Mehta on November 26, 2015, Prof Raj Bahadur, vice-chancellor of the Baba Farid University of Health Sciences pointed out that three declaration forms of faculty approved by the MCI assessors in Maharishi Markandeshwar Medical College and Hospital, Kumarhatti, in Solan, Himachal Pradesh were found to be faulty. Prof Bahadur, who is a member of the ethics committee of the Punjab Medical Council, said that in a committee meeting, they found that Dr Dinesh Kumar and Dr Barinder Pal Singh who were shown as assistant professors in general medicine at the medical college during the inspection on May 12, 2014, were shown as senior residents in the inspection...