The National Medical Commission’s (NMC) move to replace Hippocratic Oath during the white coat ceremony of undergraduate medical students with a Maharshi Charak Shapath has irked doctors in Kerala.
Classes for the new batch of MBBS students are scheduled to begin on February 14. The NMC’s proposal was found in the minutes of a meeting of its undergraduate medical education board with representatives of medical colleges. Another proposal is to have a 10-day compulsory Yoga session.
M. Muraleedharan, chairperson of the public health awareness committee, Indian Medical Association (IMA), Kerala chapter, told The Hindu that the Charak Shapath was unsuitable for the ethical practice of modern medicine. Maharshi Charak is believed to have been one of the major proponents of the Ayurveda branch of Indian systems of medicine. His treatise deals with the primitive practice of traditional medicine
“His guidelines for medical practitioners are not secular as well. The ‘shapath’ starts with the address “O dwija”, meaning Brahmins, and “facing the east in the presence of holy fire” etc. There is a sense of caste hegemony and discrimination here,” Dr. Muraleedharan said. It also says that a male doctor shall treat a woman only in the presence of her husband or a close relative. Such directives are also not practical in the modern age, he said.
Dr. Muraleedharan said that the Hippocratic Oath, an ethical code of conduct for fresh medical graduates, had a universal appeal. Though formulated centuries ago, it had been updated many times, especially since the Geneva declaration of 1948, to reflect changing socio-economic scenarios. The last revision happened in 2017.
“We don’t understand what is the need to replace it with a narrow nationalistic oath,” he added.
The IMA’s State working committee is meeting on Sunday to discuss the issue.
Meanwhile, K.V. Babu, public health activist and founder member of the Alliance of Doctors for Ethical Healthcare, said that the NMC has a legal document on its website along with the ethics regulations 2002, which is followed by the doctors in India. It is a gazetted document and not the original Hippocratic Oath. In a mail to the chairperson of the NMC, Dr. Babu said that if at all the commission wanted to change the declaration, the draft should be put on public domain, opinion sought from the people, the final version should be prepared, and gazetted. Any attempt to circumvent the procedures would invite legal action, he added.
