Category: Medicine & Doctors

Culture & Life · History India South Asia · History of Medicine · Medicine & Doctors · Recommended movies, books etc.

How doctors became powerful – Arguments from Paul Starr’s ‘The Social Transformation of American Medicine’ – Part 1

Kiran Kumbhar1 Comment

[Part 2 is here] Sociologist Paul Starr’s book ‘The Social Transformation of American Medicine’ is among the most important expositions of the evolution of medical practice and the biomedical profession in the USA. It was published in 1982 and won the 1984 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction. It is quite a thick book and contains… Continue reading How doctors became powerful – Arguments from Paul Starr’s ‘The Social Transformation of American Medicine’ – Part 1

History India South Asia · History of Medicine · Medicine & Doctors · Politics · Public health

Why India’s founders championed a well-funded government-led healthcare system

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This appeared in The Wire on 28 January 2020. Here is the article. I wrote this mainly in response to the Indian government’s gradual and timid abandonment of the universal health care goal for its people, with the latest setback being the plans to hand over our country’s civil hospitals to private agencies. “Immediately after… Continue reading Why India’s founders championed a well-funded government-led healthcare system

Cinema & Bollywood · History India South Asia · History of Medicine · Medicine & Doctors · Public health

How B&W Bollywood has preserved a multi-hued snapshot of India’s public health story

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This was published on 28 Sep by the Wire India, here. Below are some excerpts: “TB was, and is, a formidable enemy but the foremost public health enemy in the early and mid-1900s in India, accounting for almost a quarter of all deaths every year, was malaria. Observers used terrible superlatives to describe it, such… Continue reading How B&W Bollywood has preserved a multi-hued snapshot of India’s public health story

Being a good ‘doctor’, not just a good ‘clinician’: Reading recommendations for MBBS students
Medicine & Doctors · Public health · Recommended movies, books etc.

Being a good ‘doctor’, not just a good ‘clinician’: Reading recommendations for MBBS students

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As I came to appreciate after countless hours in darkened lecture halls, the biomedical view of disease looks piercingly through a patient toward some essential, objective, solid reality of biology—and yet in doing so it loses, like an X ray, almost any sense of flesh of the person. – Chris Feudtner, ‘Bittersweet: Diabetes, Insulin, and… Continue reading Being a good ‘doctor’, not just a good ‘clinician’: Reading recommendations for MBBS students

Lady Hardinge Medical College and Hospital, 1921, Women students in a laboratory [Wellcome Collection] A short history of Delhi’s Lady Hardinge Medical College, with pictures
History India South Asia · History of Medicine · Medicine & Doctors

A short history of Delhi’s Lady Hardinge Medical College, with pictures

Kiran Kumbhar1 Comment

Lady Hardinge Medical College, located in the heart of New Delhi, is one of the premier medical institutions in the country. Established in 1916, it recently celebrated a centenary of existence. The seeds of its foundation, however, lie in the late 1800s, when the British colonial government began to take some reluctant interest in providing… Continue reading A short history of Delhi’s Lady Hardinge Medical College, with pictures

Some historical nuggets about India’s premier medical institute: AIIMS, Delhi
History India South Asia · History of Medicine · Medicine & Doctors

Some historical nuggets about India’s premier medical institute: AIIMS, Delhi

Kiran Kumbhar1 Comment

AIIMS Delhi has a fascinating history. Most of what follows is indebted to the PhD thesis of Anna Ruddock, formerly at King’s College London. The thesis is titled ‘Special Medicine: Producing Doctors at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS)’. The genesis of the idea of AIIMS lies not in independent India, but in… Continue reading Some historical nuggets about India’s premier medical institute: AIIMS, Delhi

History India South Asia · History of Medicine · Medicine & Doctors

How did George Washington, the first US President, die? (Hint: much blood was spilled)

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I am reproducing this from the Medium website where I published it on Dec 28, 2020. Here is the link to that platform.   “George Washington at Mount Vernon at the end of his life, 1799,” by Howard Pyle. Accessed through Digital Commonwealth One of the most important concepts one learns during training as a… Continue reading How did George Washington, the first US President, die? (Hint: much blood was spilled)

Culture & Life · Fiction · History of Medicine · Medicine & Doctors

A riveting 1947 short story featuring India’s medical education system

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Popular representations of medical systems, professionals, and of illness itself, are an important source of knowledge for historians of medicine. During my research into the history of the Indian (bio)medical profession in the post-independence period, I recently came across a very interesting short story, published in a Sunday edition of the Indian Express in October… Continue reading A riveting 1947 short story featuring India’s medical education system