Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Medical Colleges: An Addendum

There used to be a joke about a school lab which had no implements. The teacher puts up his thumb and tells the students, “Suppose this is a test tube….” Well, that seems to be what is happening to the mushrooming medical colleges in the country.

In my post Kerala to have too many Medical Colleges I had mentioned that the availability of cadavers should be a major consideration while planning new medical colleges. Dissection of dead bodies is essential to medical studies. That is how the students learn about the human body. Any number of detailed pictures cannot match the real thing.

Today’s (June 25, 2013) Times of India, Cochin carries a worrisome report by Janani Sampath titled ‘Cadaver shortage pushes med colleges to virtual learning’. It gives details of the number of cadavers needed by medical students for dissection, why the availability of dead bodies is becoming insufficient, and how the existing medical colleges are planning to handle the problem.

It seems 3D digital bodies of the human body is the best alternative though it cannot match the real thing in medical training. Simulation. Suppose this is a test tube…

No comments: