Medical Practice

Cardiac stents became cheaper—and relatively affordable— this year. Beginning this evening, knee implants in India are all set to get about three to five fold cheaper. Surely, this news should be music to the ears of those who were forced to spend their life, knee-deep in pain and misery.  And this was not a knee-jerk … Read more

Spent a Friday morning with the SEARCH team, Gadchiroli, Maharashtra. Learned a great deal about a study that asks key questions about stroke in a rural tribal community. When researchers ask a research question that comes from the community they serve and try to find an answer that can help the underprivileged people live longer- … Read more

We ought to congratulate Sri Lanka for eliminating malaria. Yes, there is no malaria in Sri Lanka. The success story is remarkable for several reasons. The country is poor. Eight of ten Sri Lankans live in villages. The rural milieu provides an ideal environment for malaria mosquitoes to breed, grow and multiply. And the government … Read more

Four hundred thousand patients in the hospitals in the United States die every year because of medical errors—from mistakes that could have been prevented.  The BMJ article, published three days ago, says that “if the medical error was a disease, it would rank as the third leading cause of death in the US.” Preventable medical … Read more

When I began practising Medicine at MGIMS, whenever I ran into a medical problem, which I thought I could not solve, I would seek a super specialist’s help. This indeed made sense. After all, their years of training and rich experience would help me order the best test, choose the drug that works or pick … Read more