Modern medicine both art, science

Chandigarh The Post Graduate Institute ofMedical Education and Research’s (PGIMER) new academic session was inaugurated on Sunday by Farokh E Udwadia, a renowned academician, author, Emeritus Professor of Medicine, GrantMedical College & JJ Group of Hospitals, Mumbai.During the function, a few PGI employees were honoured by the chief guest for their contribution to the institute.
He addressed the new batch of post graduate students on “Academic Values and Other Perspectives of Medicine”.
Talking about the need for maintaining ethical values in medicine, Udwadia said that knowledgeable teachers, students’ discourses, pursuit of scientific inquiry, basic infrastructure and holistic care of the patients are some of the requirements of a good academic institute. “A student must think, question and innovate rather than memorise or cram by rote”, he said.
Terming the modern medicine as a combination of both art and science, he said, “Mechanisation, over specialisation and commercialisation has led to the loss of values in medicine and doctors have forgotten the art of medicine. Today the medical profession stands low because it has been robbed of humanism. There is no more sympathetic communication and empathy with the patient as it was earlier. More than knowledge good clinical judgment is important. The art of medicine is artful application of it science to the holistic care of a patient,” he said.
Earlier Vinay Sakhuja, Director of PGIMER introduced the chief guest to the audience and thanked all the students for choosing PGI for their further studies. “A new session gives us an opportunity to remind ourselves of our objectives. Providing tertiary level care to our patients at a low cost, giving top quality education to all our students and producing good medical teachers, and carrying out research that is relevant to our needs are what all of us are expected to do”, he said.
174 candidates have joined the MD/MS course of major specialties like Anesthesia, Medicine, Nuclear Medicine, Gynecology, Pediatrics, Psychiatry, Orthosurgery, Radio-diagnosis, General Surgery, Microbiology and Pathology. Thirty students have joined the DM/M Ch in cardiology, gastroenterology, nephrology, neurology, cardiovascular surgery, neurosurgery, pediatric surgery, plastic surgery, urology and surgical gastroenterology. Thirteen students will begin their Ph D. Nine students have joined MPH, eight MDS, two M Sc MLT and three MHA.
Interestingly, most students are from far-off states like Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Orissa.