Dr. Devi Shetty On Elitism In Medical Education

Brut India

“Liberate nursing and paramedical education.” This talk by Dr. Devi Shetty from 2017 found resonance as India struggles to stem Covid-19 cases in 2020.

Transcript

00:00We have made medical education as an elitist affair.

00:05Outstanding doctors across the world, with magic in their finger, most of them come from

00:11deprived background.

00:13Because these are the kids with the fire in the belly to work for 24 hours to change the

00:17rules of the game.

00:21We have a serious shortage of undergraduation seats and post-graduation seats.

00:25Just look at, that is the reason why all the corruption happens, all the scandals in medical

00:31education.

00:32Why it happens?

00:33Because there are very few seats.

00:35If 10 lakh people apply, if there are only 60,000 seats, naturally there will be lot

00:40of money changing hands.

00:42Now, first thing is how a medical college is built.

00:47It costs 400 crore rupees to build a medical college.

00:50If you go to Caribbean region, there are 35 medical colleges which are working in,

00:58which are training doctors for US, which is in a rented 50,000 square foot in a shopping

01:04mall, training fantastic doctors for US.

01:08Why are you spending 400 crore rupees and creating this edifice?

01:12It is ridiculous.

01:13All over the world, medical colleges do not have this rigid requirement.

01:18Medical colleges don't require 140 faculty members to train 100 students.

01:22140 faculty members can run a medical college with 1000 students.

01:27So, when the whole world has changed, we haven't changed.

01:31So today, what we have done, we have made medical education as an elitist affair.

01:38Poor children, when I was a young medical student, my classmates were all children from

01:43poor families.

01:45Today, children from poor families are not dreaming of becoming doctors.

01:49This will have a tremendous consequences.

01:54Outstanding doctors across the world with magic in their finger, most of them come from

01:59deprived background.

02:01Because these are the kids with the fire in the belly to work for 24 hours to change the

02:05rules of the game.

02:07If children from rich families become doctors, they opt for radiology, dermatology and other

02:13specialties where they can go home at 5 o'clock.

02:16Why should post graduate education be costing so much?

02:19Why should you pay 2 crore or 5 crore rupees or even 10 lakh rupees fees to become a specialist?

02:24All over the world, higher medical education is free of cost.

02:27So essentially, the problem is, all the problems we are happening, what's happening in the

02:34health care is not because of the government.

02:37It is because the privileged society doesn't ask the right question.

02:42Why every 12 minutes a pregnant lady should die during childbirth?

02:48Why 1.2, why 3 lakh children die the day they are born?

02:53Why 1.2 million children die before celebrating the first birthday?

02:58It is unacceptable.

02:59Why?

03:00Because we are not asking the right questions.

03:03Statistically, if these pregnant ladies had a very good antenatal checkup, 14 to 15% of

03:11them need caesarean section.

03:13That means we need to do 5.6 million caesarean, 5.2 million caesarean sections per year.

03:19To do that, we need 2 lakh gynecologists.

03:22We have 50,000 gynecologists, less than 50,000.

03:25Half of them don't practice obstetrics because they don't want to be woken up at night and

03:30all of them live in cities and 60% of children are born in rural India.

03:34We need 2 lakh anesthetists.

03:36We have less than 50,000 anesthetists.

03:38We need 2 lakh pediatricians to take care of all the kids coming.

03:41We have less than 50,000 pediatricians.

03:43We need at least 1.5 lakh radiologists.

03:46We have less than 10,500 radiologists.

03:50Then how do you expect the mental mortality to come down?

03:53It has nothing to do with money.

03:55This country doesn't require additional budgetary allocation.

03:59This country requires liberating medical, nursing and paramedical education.

04:03That's all.

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