If Ayurveda gives up its claim to "ancient medicine" to embrace the modern medicine, it loses its very reason to exist:

Medical nationalism : Don't bother shutting the barn door - the horse is long gone!!

The recent gazette notification on ayurvedic "surgeons " being allowed to operate has sounded a code blue in the medical community. There is a sudden concern regarding quackery (which we have made refined an art form) and the impropriety of it all.

Ayurveda, the ancient Indian form of medicine evokes visions of miraculous cures in the eyes of believers and derision in the medical community. The former is due to the aforesaid miracles promised and the latter because the practitioners of modern medicine are left to pick up the pieces.

While we can never be sure what ancient ayurveda was like because the mysticism surrounding it and also because the current wave of supercharged nationalism leaves no space for sensible debate. But one thing is for certain - it did not incude liberal prescription of steroids, third generation cephalosporins and frequent and expensive MRI scans!

The modern ayurvedic practitioner - a fascinating anachronism - has studied (at least going by the prescribed syllabus) anatomy, physiology, biochemist, pathology and allied basic sciences... the basis of contemporary medical practice.

Human disease and and the quest for cure predates medical degrees. Undoubtedly surgeries were performed for thousands of years - occasionally successfully- by non medical people. In fact, surgeons are still a "Mr" rather than "Dr" in the UK harking back to the days of the barber surgeon. Its common practice for non medical technicians to perform complex microvascular anastamosis in several reconstructive surgery units. This leaves no space for an argument that the Ayurvedic physician shouldn't practice surgery based on his qualification - especially if it is legal to do so.

The difference between the surgeon of yore and one of today is the exacting scientific study he has to undergo for upwards of a decade. Surgery today is a challenging discipline of medicine, not a messy hack job and the surgeon is a physician who can operate - not the neighbourhood barber!! I will be glad if an ayurvedic physician drains a life threatening abscess - so long as he has been trained right and does so safely!

While the argument against ayurvedic practitioners performing surgery might be misplaced, the premise isn't.

The real deal- breaker here, and the reason behind the title to this write up is the contradiction in modern Ayurveda. If the argument is that they can practice modern (western) medicine because they are trained in it as a part of their syllabus, then what about the study of ayurveda itself??And what of the tall claims that their form of medicine is superior to western medicine?? If half their training of spent in studying modern medicine, does BAMS really require 4 years of study?? And how does the other half of study of modern medicine prepare them to the same level of training of a doctor with a degree of MBBS? And if the training is on par with their MBBS contemporaries, why not enrol them in the modern scientific post graduate course via NEET.

The most important distinction in the different streams of medicine is the training in modern pharmacology and medicine. If Ayurveda gives up its claim to "ancient medicine" to embrace the modern pharmacopoeia, it loses its very reason to exist, relegating its practitioner to a poorly trained doctor with a spattering of ayurvedic knowledge!

It's too late to close the barn door because the horse bolted the day ayurvedic practitioners were allowed to prescribe "western " medicine, order investigations and imaging they weren't trained to interpret and diagnose ailments they had little idea about. My understanding is that the surgical specialties have been offer now for several years - the objection should've been then... Not now!!

The horse bolted when the government looked the other way when Western medicine was included in the syllabus!!

The horse bolted when we mixed nationalism with science and medicine.

The horse bolted when we confused nationalism with patriotism!!!

By: Aditya Moorthy

Source: received as whatsapp forward

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