Category: Public health

Cinema & Bollywood · History · History of Medicine · Medicine & Doctors · Public health

How B&W Bollywood has preserved a multi-hued snapshot of India’s public health story

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This was published on 28 Sep by the Wire India, here. Below are some excerpts: “TB was, and is, a formidable enemy but the foremost public health enemy in the early and mid-1900s in India, accounting for almost a quarter of all deaths every year, was malaria. Observers used terrible superlatives to describe it, such… Continue reading How B&W Bollywood has preserved a multi-hued snapshot of India’s public health story

Being a good ‘doctor’, not just a good ‘clinician’: Reading recommendations for MBBS students
Medicine & Doctors · Public health · Recommended movies, books etc.

Being a good ‘doctor’, not just a good ‘clinician’: Reading recommendations for MBBS students

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As I came to appreciate after countless hours in darkened lecture halls, the biomedical view of disease looks piercingly through a patient toward some essential, objective, solid reality of biology—and yet in doing so it loses, like an X ray, almost any sense of flesh of the person. – Chris Feudtner, ‘Bittersweet: Diabetes, Insulin, and… Continue reading Being a good ‘doctor’, not just a good ‘clinician’: Reading recommendations for MBBS students

Medicine & Doctors · Public health · Uncategorized

Cochrane and the challenges of producing trustworthy evidence in medicine

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This was published in the Wire on 18 Nov 2018. Here is the link, and below is an excerpt: “In 1972, a British doctor Archibald Cochrane wrote a book titled Effectiveness and Efficiency: Random Reflections on Health Services. It had a great influence on ideas about decision-making in medicine and public health. Archibald was concerned with… Continue reading Cochrane and the challenges of producing trustworthy evidence in medicine

History of Medicine · Medicine & Doctors · Public health · Recommended movies, books etc.

Review of the book ‘Healers or Predators: Healthcare Corruption in India’ by Nundy, Desiraju, Nagral

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This review was published in Wire.in on 18 Oct 2018. Here is the full article. Below is an excerpt: As a former physician now studying the history of the medical profession in India, I found the chapters written by veteran doctors most interesting. M.K. Mani, who has been in medicine for the last 60 years,… Continue reading Review of the book ‘Healers or Predators: Healthcare Corruption in India’ by Nundy, Desiraju, Nagral

History · History of Medicine · Medicine & Doctors · Public health · Recommended movies, books etc.

The history of medicine in India: Some reading recommendations for doctors and other healthcare practitioners

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Over the last two years I have fortunately had the time and resources to read some excellent scholarship on the history of medicine and public health in India. These books and articles have immensely helped me to understand the historical beginnings and trajectories of the different aspects of healthcare in our country. For example, one… Continue reading The history of medicine in India: Some reading recommendations for doctors and other healthcare practitioners

Culture & Life · History · History of Medicine · Public health

The “oppressive” history of family planning and population control in India

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I wrote this for Swaddle on July 8 2018. Here is the original article. I based it primarily on the book ‘Reproductive Restraints: Birth Control in India, 1877-1947’ by historian Sanjam Ahluwalia of Northern Arizona University Below are some excerpts: Birth control began in India not as a free choice by individuals to manage their fertility, but as… Continue reading The “oppressive” history of family planning and population control in India

Culture & Life · Public health

Navigating gender equality and public health when it comes to smoking

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I am reproducing here an answer I wrote on Quora to the question “What’s your message to girls who equate smoking and drinking with women empowerment?” The original answer can be found here. [I don’t have any ‘message’ to anyone. I am writing here mainly to relay some of my thoughts on these issues and… Continue reading Navigating gender equality and public health when it comes to smoking

History of Medicine · Medicine & Doctors · Public health

Inviting doctors and patients to share experiences and thoughts

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A project on the history of the patient-doctor relationship in contemporary India: My name is Kiran Kumbhar. I am an MBBS graduate from BJ Govt Medical College, Pune (2010), and have previously worked in Pune, Ratnagiri, Mumbai, and Delhi as medical officer and non-PG resident doctor. Currently I am a PhD student at Harvard University,… Continue reading Inviting doctors and patients to share experiences and thoughts