Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Doctors urged to commit themselves to research


Chennai: Research should be part and parcel of the entire academic programme, Chief Secretary K.S.Sripathi said here on Monday.


Inaugurating a seminar on making the spirit of scientific enquiry an integral part of medical curriculum at undergraduate and postgraduate level, organised by the Tamil Nadu Dr.MGR Medical University, he urged doctors to commit themselves to research.

Underscoring the significance of research in every field, he said “the alternative systems of medicine offer a wealth of knowledge that could be made use of. Some radicalism is called for if we have to break out of the cocoon for the benefit of mankind.”

Principal Secretary to the Health and Family Welfare Department V.K. Subburaj said since infectious diseases continued to affect the population, the emphasis should be on research in communicable and non-communicable diseases.

Under the National Rural Health Mission, the Central government spent Rs.12,000 crore and proposed to increase the fund allocation by 30 per cent every year.

“All our undergraduate and postgraduate students could be given specific projects to make medical education a meaningful pursuit,” Mr. Subburaj said.

In the past decade, regular inspections by the Medical Council of India had helped improve the quality of medical education thus benefiting students, patients and faculty, said S. Vinayagam, Director of Medical Education.

K. Meer Mustafa Hussain, Vice-Chancellor of the University, said the seminar was being organised to celebrate the platinum jubilee of the Medical Council of India.

The daylong seminar included paper presentations on community-oriented medical research, research methodology, recent advances in genomics and funding opportunities for medical research.