Author: akshay
-
Healthcare in Consumer Protection Act 2019, VP Shantha and why you should read the source
There are good journalists and bad journalists. It is the reader’s duty to discern between what is right and what is wrong. The problem in the 21st century is that that duty is completely thrown into water under the guise of “forwarded as received”. There are a lot of articles in newspapers talking about dropping…
-
Meftal-Spas vs Meftal-Forte for Menstrual Pain
I was recently asked by someone whether Meftal-Forte is a better drug than Meftal-Spas for menstrual pain. I hadn’t heard about Meftal-Forte till then. So I looked up. 1mg told me both the drugs are manufactured by Blue Cross. The page about Meftal-Spas gives us what I knew already – it is a combination of…
-
Practical Career Guide for First Benchers
This is partly a response to “All That Glitters” by an IITian and partly a message to my brother who is an IITian. Although I used to sit mostly on the back bench during school, I fit the first bencher stereotype more – good scores, liked by teachers, great expectations. I currently have a career…
-
How Did I Become A Programmer?
Arya asked me from Germany, “How did you start with programming? Maybe write a blog about it? Your learning strategies”. To those of you who know me as a doctor, I’m a professional programmer who can work on any part of the stack (and even off the stack), and a free software advocate. To those…
-
Consent of the Pediatric Patient
Last week, an interesting question was raised in our primary care fellowship ECHO session. “Can you give consultation to a minor without the guardian’s consent?” A simple scenario could be when a 15 year old girl comes to your clinic alone, anxious, and asks for a consult. Would you proceed normally? Would you ask her…
-
The Case of Dr Payal Tadvi or the Case of India’s Healthcare System?
Dr Payal Tadvi committed suicide exactly a week ago. She was a postgraduate student in Obstetrics & Gynecology. Investigation is going on about the death. There are quotes from family members that she was being harassed on the basis of caste by seniors. Those seniors have written their side blaming workload. (Please go through the…
-
The Power and Limits of Classification
Link to journal article: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1811491?query=TOC My comment: In our work with transgender men and women and other gender minorities, this was the common opinion among all "categories" of people – to stop categorizing them. Here is another illustration. HIV prevention and control efforts in India has a certain stress on prevention among high risk groups.…
-
The Ideal Physician AI Assistant
When I hear “Artificial Intelligence” and “Healthcare” together in a sentence, it is usually never a pleasant thing I’m listening to. There almost always is some kind of reinvention of wheel where Google’s hardware cycles are spent in trying to solve something meaningless. For example, it is futile to differentiate between tuberculosis and cancer from…
-
On Libraries
Sunil K Pandya asked on NMJI “Are Libraries in Our Medical Institutes Dead?“ Badakere Rao responded to it with his memories of physical books. I had this response: The article on libraries and your response to it was a sweet read to me. The school in Mattanur that I studied from 1st standard till 10th…
-
Why “Regulations” Are Often Not Helpful Solutions
The other day I saw an impassioned plea from a doctor asking associations to “regulate the profession”. The reason they cited was that healthcare is turning commercial and often this goes against the best interest of the patient. One of the many things I learned in National Law School listening to Prof Nandimath and others…