Category Archives: medicine

The Twitter-Storm in a Kashaya (Herbal Tea) Cup

People often forget that food is also made up of chemicals- each of which have their own toxicity levels. Enough of the regular garden variety chocolate can kill a mid sized dog by poisoning. Many of these supposedly “immunity boosting” ingredients- Turmeric, Fenugreek (Methi) seeds, chawanprash, basil(Tulsi), Aloe Vera when consumed in large quantities can cause liver and kidney issues in people

Why branded drugs cost way more than their generic counterparts?

Whether a particular drug is branded or generic, it’s efficacy and safety profile should be the same. Often with the intention to reduce costs of medicines, less ethical means are taken to that end. If drug regulation is poor, unethical businessmen will stop at nothing to increase their profit margins. Our focus should not only be in reducing costs of drugs but more on ensuring that quality and reliable safe drugs reach the end consumers-the patients.

When will Artificial Intelligence replace Human Doctors?

AI robots will be complementary to human doctors and won’t be a zero-sum game for a long time to come. AIs will help us reduce our mistakes, decrease our workload, make us work more sane hours and in turn manage our work-life balance- but at least in the foreseeable future they aren’t going to replace us. Maybe it will lead to lot of us doing less mundane, repetitive jobs and with doctors doing much higher intellectual level work.

Contrarian View: Why a Covid-19 vaccine might not be the answer to end the pandemic!

Vaccines are tough business. From all the decades of collective knowledge in vaccine development we have, it is very rare that we will get a successful vaccine for any disease. Vaccine development takes years and for good reason.

HCQ Saga : Bad Science, Petty Politics, Shaky Integrity and Lack of Critical Thinking!

The scientific community should be embarrassed that they lost their nerve in the middle of a pandemic. In the race to publish new papers due diligence like peer review and data congruence was ignored by the editorial boards of both the journals involved in the scandal. ICMR leadership too is doing a disservice to scientific thinking in public health policy. Their obscurantism of the HCQ question by publishing vague non-scientific studies actually keeps the world from knowing if HCQ works or not for sure

Guidelines for the Oculoplastic and Ophthalmic Trauma Surgeon during the COVID-19 era – An APOTS & APSOPRS Document

The outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic is changing the infection, transmission and safety practices of medical establishments globally. From evidence that is available presently, the risk of transmission of this virus is high amongst medical personnel involved in procedures and surgeries around the head and neck region- Ophthalmology, Otorhinolaryngology, Craniomaxillofacial surgery, Head and Neck Oncology, Neurosurgery including Anesthesiology. The field of Oculoplastic Surgery has risk factors common to both ophthalmology and all of the above craniofacial subspecialties. While clear directives and strategies to handle elective, urgent and emergency surgeries in SARS-Cov2 positive patients is constantly evolving, we herewith attempt to consolidate various guidelines from various relevant professional global medical societies which will be beneficial to the orbit, oculoplastic and ophthalmic trauma surgeon and also their hospital administrators.

Why I love what I do?

I wasn’t a natural at being a doctor and struggled a little bit in medical school. Medical school was sometimes confusing and intimidating. I picked up empathy along the way and learnt to be compassionate to other people. I found out that I loved the difference that I bought to others and got better at doing my job. A lot of what I love about my job today, I discovered while being a doctor. If I hadn’t taken up medicine I would have never found out how much I would enjoy it.

Medical advances since the 18th century!

I was recently reading up on the watershed moments in the history of modern medicine and I have to admit I was overwhelmed with information. The list below is the timeline since the end of the 18th century. I may decide to update the post at a later date. 1796- Small pox vaccine introduced byContinue reading “Medical advances since the 18th century!”

Why Physicians Write?

Storytelling forms the very basis of medicine. We doctors listen to patients stories, construct a narrative and tell other doctors those stories (case presentations, studies and case reports) comparing notes with existing scientific data and collective knowledge (conferences and peer-reviewed journals). Physicians are witnesses of human drama- life, death, suffering, fear, pain and joy- every day. This theater that plays out in front of them sometimes finds catharsis and bleeds onto paper.