Address At The XXXII Convocation Of All India Institute Of Medical Sciences

WEB OF LIFE

I am indeed delighted to be with the All India Institute of Medical Sciences. My greetings to all the graduating students, faculty members, doctors, staff and the distinguished gathering. Medicine is the most challenging profession where human miseries and pain combat with the best of human intelligence and patience. I was thinking what thoughts I can share with the medical professionals, who will become society's Angels with their humane services. The topic I have selected: "Web of Life".

Vision for Healthcare

A report on "Health Care in India" was prepared in consultation with leading doctors, medical technologists and healthcare providers in the country. The report brought out typical problems facing us for two decades in health care and suggested possible solutions. The expert team has identified eradication of three major diseases namely:- tuberculosis, HIV and water-borne diseases by the next decade, followed by cardiovascular diseases, neuro-psychiatric disorders, renal diseases and hypertension, gastrointestinal disorders, eye disorders, genetic diseases, accidents and trauma, which need our attention.

There are two major issues involved. First, we have to augment our primary healthcare system in a big way, empower our secondary healthcare system and integrate both with the tertiary care centres. Second, we should see how advancement in technology could be put to use to improve the health care system of the country. These two efforts will make modern medicine available and accessible to all the citizens of our country. This will contribute to the nation's progress, as a strong body and sound minds of the citizens are essential to accomplish development.

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". The World Wide Web will make a tremendous impact in the way we communicate and live. Most of the computers and accessories will be micro sized, wearable and will have wireless communications with each other. Moderately priced PCs capable of performing about a billion calculations per second today, will be able to perform about a trillion calculations per second within the next 10 years. By 2020, the computational ability of an ordinary PC will exceed the capability of the human brain. By 2030 the capability of a normal PC would be around a thousand times that of human 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 humans 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 biologists and bio-technologists, the entire scientific community would have a greater responsibility of keeping mankind above man-made computers. Fortunately, the creativity and imagination components of humans 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 the human species.

Time has come for our scientific community to prove its 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 non-linear 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 the economy and the environment through manufacture. The economy and the environment link technology to society.

Biotechnology in Health Care

I would like to share my experiences while I was in Anna University, Chennai. An 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 a database of traditional medicinal plants for specific bioactivity and lead to development of new drugs. India has got tremendous potential for herbal farming and research.

Is it possible to remove the pain of mentally challenged children?

In addition to my teaching engineering students on various societal transformation missions at Anna University, I was also guiding a doctoral research project. The research is to find a software hardware integrated solution to achieve a near normal functioning of the brain of mentally challenged children. When I saw some of the mentally challenged children performing certain activities like singing and painting at the Central Institute of Mental Retardation, Thiruvananthapuram, I was convinced that one day convergence of information and communication technology, medical electronics, bio-technology and mathematical simulation can find a solution to their problem. We have been studying mentally challenged children in various research institutions, homes for mentally retarded and hospitals. We were sure that by transforming the functions of the damaged portion of the brain to the normal portion of the brain by some triggering mechanism, or by implanting a bio-chip to carry-out those functions. The problem is very complex. Can it be solved? The research still continues. We target to achieve a few milestones in this research by 2005.

Heart pain and cardiologists

When I am at this great institution, AIIMS, a place from where millions of people would have been treated and got their pains removed in the last five decades, I realise, dear graduates, the great experience you are carrying with you. Every year AIIMS conducts one lakh twenty thousand surgical procedures. Also more than 40,000 cardiac surgeries have been carried out so far. In India, the fourth largest number 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 defects, improper food habits or indifference to health awareness? Hence, the mission of medical doctors has to be directed towards the best possible cardiac healthcare in a cost effective manner with a 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 and heart defects through proper preventive methods, evolving preventive technology such as early diagnostic tools, 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.

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 life style intervention. This can consist of a proper diet with low fat and high fibre, regular aerobic exercises 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 promoting preventive cardiology at the national level. When the cardiac surgeon performs a heart surgery by opening the chest, the patient becomes part and parcel of the surgeon and considers the doctor 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 heart surgeons 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

Stem Cell Research

The recent identification and characterization of progenitors with stem cell properties have opened new avenues that may be useful for treating functional impairments caused by the death of specific cell population. Stem cells may help restore functioning of certain defective organs, by repopulating or rescuing the damaged cells from further degeneration. There will be a revolution in the medical treatment for heart care, cancer, blindness and the mentally challenged. It is essential to launch an integrated national stem cell research program

Conclusion

Whether India has to eradicate leprosy or TB, to prevent the spread of HIV by developing an anti-HIV vaccine, or to control cardio-vascular diseases by multiple technologies and practices, we in India need something important apart from resources. That is creative leadership in all fields, particularly in the medical field. Who are the creative leaders? What are the qualities of a creative leader? Creative leadership is exercising the task to change the traditional role from commander to coach, from manager to mentor, from director to delegator and from one who demands respect to one who facilitates self-respect. The higher the proportion of creative leaders in the medical field, the higher the potential for successes in the medical field in diagnosis, treatment and research for discovering new avenues in healthcare.

May God bless you.