PG Times

Historians have long debated the role that Dr. Franklin played in identifying the double helix. A new opinion essay argues that she was an “equal contributor.”   On April 25, 1953, James Watson and Francis Crick published  a landmark paper  in Nature, proposing the double helix as the long elusive structure of DNA, a discovery that a decade later earned the men the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. In the final paragraph of the paper, they acknowledged that they had been “stimulated by a knowledge of the general nature of the unpublished experimental results and ideas” of two scientists at King’s College London, Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin. In the 70 years since, a less flattering story has emerged, thanks in large part to Dr. Watson’s own best-selling book, “The Double Helix.” In the book, he not only wrote disparagingly of Dr. Franklin, whom he called Rosy, but also said that he and Dr. Crick had used her data without her knowledge. “Rosy, of course, did ...

According to a study, 358 suicide deaths among medical students (125), residents (105) and physicians (128) had been reported between 2010 and 2019; additionally, 1,166 students dropped out of medical colleges; there were several appeals for intervention from students and parents. A recent Right to Information (RTI) response from the National Medical Commission (NMC) said that 64 MBBS and 55 postgraduate medicos died by suicide in the last five years. Additionally, 1,166 students dropped out of medical colleges. Of these, 160 were studying MBBS and 1,006 were pursuing postgraduate courses. ALSO READ Revisiting two cases of medico deaths Concerned over the incidents of suicide and suicidal ideation among medical students, the NMC, India’s apex medical education regulatory authority, late in 2022  asked all medical colleges in the country to compile  data on suicides, and drop-outs among undergraduate and postgraduate students over the past five years. The decision by the c...

It must encompass primary, secondary and tertiary care for all who need it, and at affordable cost without discrimination Do we believe in health as a basic human right, which India’s Constitution guarantees under right to life? In contrast, we believe in the World Health Organization (WHO) definition of health: a certain totality of health to the realms of mental and social well-being and happiness beyond physical fitness, and an absence of disease and disability. This means that we cannot achieve health in its wider definition without addressing health determinants. This necessitates a need for an intersectoral convergence beyond medical and health departments such as women and child development, food and nutrition, agriculture and animal husbandry, civil supplies, rural water supply and sanitation, social welfare, tribal welfare, education, forestry. Healthcare As An Optional Public Service (HOPS) as a route to universal health care We all subscribed to the slogan “Health for All by...