Disclaimer: I realize that I could be putting myself in great academic danger by publishing this post while studying medicine in the same state of the honoured author. But whoever decides to influence my very open professors and make me fail in my exams, also please read this response by nirmukta to one of his articles, to realize that I'm not the only person who feels like there's stone in the rice, waiting to be bitten.
Ah! What an interesting title and how easy a way to grab the attention of a medical student tired of reading pharmacology.
Within minutes of starting to read this book, I could smell honest but blind religiosity.
With all due respect to the degrees the author possesses, this book isn't worth buying. But you should definitely read it once, to understand the workings of a conspiracy theorist's mind.
If you read with a truly open mind, you will be able to ignore the blatant errors of facts or practicality and focus on the drive home message, which is "this world is so bad, let us build a newer world"
I'll go with a chapter by chapter review for the sake of not sounding rude.
Preface, introduction, forward: Apparently modern medicine is a lie and we should be imparting a more holistic treatment to people.
Chapter 2: Born again science
Scientific mumbo jumbo and a display of erroneous understanding of statistics. Uses the word "non-linear" again and again to suggest that the human body cannot be explained mechanistically. Finally invokes analogies from physics to suggest that modern medicine is flat earth and ayurveda is quantum leap.
Chapter 3: Man and his problems
Uses evolution to suggest that since modern medicine is recent, we should go back to ayurveda
Chapter 4: human body's intelligence
Uses physiology to suggest that sex workers won't catch AIDS, that eating mud is good for health, that treating diseases is bad.
[Can't say I don't agree to this. I totally hate taking medicine for cold, fever, diarrhoea, etc. But I so am afraid of sinusitis, otitis media, dysentery, etc]
Chapter 5: Social Health Promotion
This is the first useful chapter in this book. The author rightly identifies that diseases need a social cure, and goes on to propose an arguably practical solution: Let villages have a club where they discuss everything relevant to them and find solutions all by themselves without outside intervention.
The author also adds ten commandments for a healthy discussion. But I have no idea if the author thinks that all the villagers are going to read his commandments and follow them. And I'm not sure if he's aware of something called "Panchayati Raj system"
Chapter 6: Healthcare reaching the unreached
Here the author introduces us to his own classification of diseases according to which only 10% of diseases are the ones that need treatment. Rest of them could do with changes in the lifestyle.
I'm alright with this as long as the author lets me know where he got that "10%" statistic from.
Further there are 18 commandments for India laid out starting from "comprehensive development of villages" and ending at "economic empowerment of masses".
This is where I started understanding the problem with this book. It is well meant. It is sincerely written. But it says things that we all know.
Chapter 7: Power of Prayer
More ideas about how everyone should be tolerant, how there should be tranquillity.
Chapter 8: The quiet art of medicine
Must read if you are a medical student. In this chapter, the author gives us the actual wisdom he has accumulated as a fine doctor. He talks about sympathy, imperturbability, and "aequanimitas", and how medicine should not be made a business, about learning, never stopping learning, about loving your alma mater, about knowing alternate medical practices, etc. If this chapter was the whole book, I'd whole heartedly have asked you to read this book.
Chapter 9: The fine art of living
This one too. The author pours out all his wisdom living life, and is a fine lesson in work ethics.
Chapter 10: Doctor's dilemma
A small chapter bashing modern medicine again.
Chapter 11: Joys and Sorrows
Some oft-repeated stress management tips.
Chapter 12: Deschooling Medical education in India
Here's where I actually understood that not much of research has been put into writing this book. Why? Because of Lord Macaulay urban legend being the basis of this chapter. (Also because I find a lot of proofreading mistakes, like too many exaggeration marks!)
As far as I've understood from their vision 2015, MCI is trying hard to reform the medical education scenario in India. The author is putting forth his ideas based on Western system, which is also good. Maybe, the MCI should read this chapter.
Chapter 13: Science and Scientism
This is where the author explicitly falls into the trap of not understanding what science is and what Scientism is. By putting forth a few useless paragraphs that talks about life on Mars, about validity of Big Bang theory, about Einstein plagiarizing from his wife, about quantum mechanics the author has taken away all my trust. And then he mentions that RCTs are unreliable. And then he confuses the potential for statistics to be abused with statistics being fake.
And I don't want to read the rest of the book and waste my beautiful evening.
