Address At The Medical And Nursing Cadets Of Armed Forces Medical College At Pune

My Mission is Removing the Pain

- Thirukkural (200 BC) 666

People who elevate the thoughts, 
through constant reflection, 
and be steadfast in their action, 
will positively achieve, 
what they originally thought.

I am indeed delighted to be with the Medical and Nursing Cadets of Armed Forces Medical College (AFMC). I greet the Commandant and members of the AFMC faculty, support staff, medical and nursing cadets. When I see the medical cadets, I see them as future pain removers. When I see the nursing cadets, I am reminded of angels moving in a full moon night. In a hospital when no doctors, no relatives are around the patients distress during night time, the nurses go around to provide consolation and relief to the patients. At that time nurses appear to be angels for the patients to cater to their requirements like medicines, dressing and other help. Both the doctors and nurses provide yeoman service in removing human miseries and pain with human intelligence and patience. I appreciate the significant contribution made by the faculty members for nurturing the Armed Forces Medical College, as one of the leading medical institutions in the world. I congratulate them for shaping the young minds to a noble mission. I was thinking what thoughts I could share with this group. The topic I have selected for this interaction is: "My Mission is the Removing the Pain".

Supremacy of the human mind

Since you are all going to work with the integrated system of psychology and physiology of human beings, I would like to share with you, friends, some of the predictions of Ray Kurzweil, written in his book "When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence - The Age of Spiritual Machines". World Wide Web will make tremendous impact in the way we communicate and live. Most of the computers and accessories will be of micro sized, wearable and will have wireless communications with each other. Moderately priced PCs capable of performing about billion calculations per second today will be able to perform about trillion calculations per second within next 10 years. And by 2020 computational ability of an ordinary PC will exceed the capability of human brain. By 2030 the capability of a normal PC would be around 1000 times of human brain capability.

By the end of this century there would be a strong trend towards merger of human thinking with the world of machine intelligence that the human species initially created. When there would no longer be any clear distinction between human brain and computers, how are we going to retain the supremacy of man over machines? Computers are going to give us a challenge. It is not only for the biologists and bio-technologists; the entire scientific community would have greater responsibility of keeping the mankind above the man-made computers. Fortunately, the creativity and imagination components of human system are supreme and will continue to excel which need to be explored and utilized. The human genome is full of software that is yet to be activated to unleash the ingenious potentials of human spices.

Time has come for our scientific community to prove our abilities in the field of bio-science and bio-technology for harnessing these technologies in multiple fields for wealth generation for societal transformation as we have accomplished in the field of information technology. Technology is the most nonlinear tool that can effect the most fundamental changes in the ground rules of economic competitiveness. Science is linked to technology through applications. Technology is linked to economy and environment through manufacture. Economy and environment link technology to the society.

Biotechnology in Health Care

I would like to share my experiences, while I was in Anna University, Chennai. A unique research effort resulted in getting a patent for a new molecule discovered from a herb as an anti cancer drug. This came out of the fusion of two great minds, one was a bio technologist and the other was a traditional siddha medical practitioner. The traditional system of medicine like Ayurveda, Siddha etc have advocated and practiced preventive and curative medicinal recipes specific to individuals. The body, mind, food and environment were looked at holistically to suggest a preventive or curative approach to health. New technologies such as human genome sequencing, proteomics, pharmaco-genomics, ultra high throughput screening are revolutionizing drug discovery. Medicinal plants offer enormous scope for development of drugs. We need to create database of traditional medicinal plants for specific bioactivity and lead for development of new drugs. India has got tremendous potentials for herbal farming and research.

Heart pain and cardiologists

In India, fourth largest numbers of heart surgeries in the world are conducted. More than 50,000 heart surgeries are performed every year in our country. Also it is reported that India has the highest number of persons suffering from heart diseases. Why? Is it due to genetic defect, improper food habits or indifference to health awareness? Hence the mission of the medical doctors has to be directed towards the best possible cardiac healthcare in a cost effective manner with surgeon's heart with love. Yet there is a most important mission that is bigger than the gathering here and bigger than even a nation: Bringing down heart ailments, heart defects through proper preventive methods, evolving preventive technology such as early diagnostic tool, training for stress free life and above all doing research to learn from a few rural areas and hilly regions where minimum heart ailments are reported. With this background, it is all the more important to have full time research centres with medical doctors.

Doctor as a Teacher

Since every cardiac surgeon is involved in cardiac surgery for removal of the defect and the pain of the heart patient, he or she can also play a vital role in preventing heart diseases through proper health education to the patient as well as to his or her relatives and friends through the life style intervention. This can consist of a proper diet with low fat and high fiber, regular aerobic exercise like walking and stress management through Yoga, meditation and other methods. This can help in preventing the recurrence of the disease in the heart patient as well as promote preventive cardiology at the national level. When the cardiac surgeon performs the heart surgery by opening the chest, the patient becomes part and parcel of the surgeons and considers the doctors almost as God. Hence, the patient will definitely accept your health education considering you as the most respected guru. Every patient receives his family members, relatives and friends when he is receiving healthcare in the hospital. That is the occasion when the doctors can give this message of a healthy life style to all of them. If the doctors do this I can foresee that the incidence of heart disease requiring surgical intervention will come down and also the quality of life of the heart patients will improve. These teachings will be true to all branches of medical sciences.

Treatment for Sickle Cell disease

Recently, when I visited Chattisgarh, I was informed by various authorities that sickle cell anemia disease is prevalent in tribal areas of Chattisgarh and adjoining States. I understand over 25 lakh population suffers from this disease and large number of children die every year due to complications caused by sickle cell disease among the mothers. Life expectancy of this population is quite low and it is reported that this disease is a silent killer. The Medical Researchers of India have to take up this task in all earnestness.

Dr. Kmiec had shown that the new gene repair technology may hold promise as a treatment for sickle cell anemia and other diseases by correcting the DNA mutation from which they arise.

Sickle cell disease is an inherited condition. Two genes for the sickle hemoglobin must be inherited from one's parents in order to have the disease. A person who receives a gene for sickle cell disease from one parent and a normal gene from the other has a condition called sickle cell trait. Sickle cell trait produces no symptoms or problems for most people. Sickle cell disease can neither be contracted nor passed on to another person. The severity of sickle cell disease varies tremendously. Some people with sickle cell disease lead lives that are nearly normal. Others are less fortunate, and can suffer from a variety of complications. Some of the common symptoms seen in the patients suffering from sickle cell anemia include i) anemia ii) intermittent jaundice iii) severe joint pains iv) recurrent infections. These symptoms appear between the ages of four and five and severity increases with advancement of age. The available treatment strategies can be divided into anti-sickling agents, vasoactive drugs bone marrow transplantation and gene therapy. During my visit to Chattisgarh, I found this disease prevalent in tribal areas and I would recommend the members of the Armed Forces Medical community to apply their mind collectively to find preventive and post-occurrence cost effective treatment for this dreaded disease. Since some of the cadets after graduation may be posted to Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Orissa and Uttar Pradesh States, I would suggest they can take special care in treating patients having sickle cell disease in the tribal areas.

Conclusion

We need good hearts to treat the ailing hearts, we need helping hands to remove the pain, and we need beautiful minds to give happiness to the patients. In this context, I would like to recall a poem. I would like to share with you the essence of it. When God first created the human being, it took millions and millions of years to get the right shape. He went on experimenting and finally he realized the shape he wanted. Once realized, he gave life. First the man said, ?I thank you, Almighty. Second thing he did, he smiled at God. Almighty was very happy, that his creation has done two things correctly. Then, God was preoccupied for some time, later when God looked at the man and found something is missing in him. He created the fire in Milli-seconds and created Satan out of fire. He asked Satan to prostrate before the first human being that he created in his image. The Satan refused to prostrate. He said, ?Oh! Almighty you have created me out of fire, I am a superior creation?. The God was taken back. He thought for a while and decided to integrate the man and Satan into a one single system that is the human race what we are. If we want to become close to Almighty God, let our mind and hand be kind to human beings who are suffering from diseases. That means we have defeated the Satan within us. The question is who will defeat whom? May God bless you to be close to God?s image and the Satan gets defeated. Your kindness will flow through your actions, thousands and thousands of patients will be relieved of the heart pain and they will say ?Thank you doctor? with the smile. That means you are in God?s image. If nurses and doctors possess angelic qualities a beautiful world will emerge.

In this context, dear Medical and Nursing Cadets, can you take a five point oath?

1. We the Medical and Nursing Cadets realize that we are in God?s mission.

2. We will always give part of our time for treating patients who are in our neighbourhood and who cannot afford.

3. We will treat at least 20 rural patients in a year free of cost by going to rural areas.

4. We will encourage the development of quality indigenous equipments and consumables.

5. We will follow the motto ?Let my brain remove your pain and bring smiles?.

My best wishes to all the medical and nursing cadets for success in their mission of removing the pain of the soldiers.

May God bless you.