JOIN USNo mixing with modern medicine, clarifies Ayush Ministry after surgery notification draws flak
A day after it was accused of mixing up modern medicine with ancient Indian Ayurvedic system, the AYUSH Ministry on Sunday assured that there would not be any such mingling and postgraduate Ayurveda students will restrict themselves with 58 types of surgical procedures as notified by the Central Council of Indian Medicine.
The CCIM has notified 39 general surgical and 19 ENT, eye, head and dental care related procedures that PG Ayurveda scholars of Shalya and Shalakya streams need to be practically trained so that they can perform such procedures independently after completing their post-graduation.
The notification was specific to those procedures and didn’t not allow Shalya and Shalakya postgraduates to take up any other types of surgery, the ministry clarified in a statement after Indian Medical Association described the move as a “retrograde step that would corrupt the entire Indian healthcare system.”
“The question of mixing of Ayurveda with conventional (modern) medicine doesn’t arise as the CCIM is deeply committed to maintaining the authenticity of Indian systems of medicine, and is against any such mixing,” said the statement.
The IMA on Saturday said it would resist any form of mixing of different forms of medicine and took strong objections to the use of modern medical names of such surgical procedures as used in the notification.
For instance, in the notification Unddukpuchha-Shoth has been Appendectomy or removal of appendix while Pittashmari Nirharan-chhedan has been dubbed as removal of gallstones.
“IMA exhorts the CCIM to develop their own surgical disciplines from their own ancient texts and not claim the surgical disciplines of modern medicine as its own. They have no right to the technical terms, techniques and procedures of modern medicine,” the association said in its statement.
The ministry has responded to the charges. “The modern terminologies in the field of medicine are not modern from a temporal perspective, but are derived substantially from ancient languages like Greek, Latin and even Sanskrit, and later languages like Arabic. Evolution of terminologies is a dynamic and inclusive process,” it said.
“Modern medical terms and terminology facilitates effective communication and correspondence not just among physicians, but also to other stake-holders including the public. In the instant notification, modern terms are adopted as per requirement to ensure that the same is understood widely in the medical profession, in the stake-holding disciplines like the medico-legal, health IT etc., as well as by the members of the public,” it added.