Many medical graduates to skip their rural service for now

Several medical graduates who were awarded gold medals at the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS) convocation on Thursday said they had decided to skip their rural service for the time being.

Deepthi Agarwal, who bagged five gold medals, said expecting students to opt for rural service without providing adequate facilities would serve no purpose. The High Court has stayed the mandatory rural service clause that was made compulsory by the State government.

Medicos can currently opt out of the service by paying a fine. K.S. Ravindranath, Vice-Chancellor of RGUHS who advocated for rural service, however, said the internship should also account for as part of the rural service.

H. Sharath Chandra, Director of the Centre for Human Genetics, Bengaluru, who was the chief guest, said there was a need for research in medicine. He said there was inadequate involvement in medical research by the country’s leading scientific institutions.

“None of the top academic institutions in the country — there are three in Bengaluru alone — has a hospital on its campus. In international rankings, these institutions figure as our best and they are all engaged in biological research of a high order. But there are few, if any, clinicians among their faculty,” he said, and added that even IITs had the same deficiency.

A total of 69 students were given 103 gold medals and 26,698 students were conferred degrees.

Honour for cardiologist

Govindaraj Subramani, who has been serving the poor and needy patients for nearly two decades, was conferred an honorary doctorate by the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS) on Thursday.

Dr. Subramani, a 1973 graduate of the Mysore Medical College and now a cardiologist based in the U.S., has been visiting Bengaluru every year. During every visit, he brings stents from the U.S. and performs free surgeries on 200 patients. In 2000, he tied up with the Jayadeva Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences and Research for this initiative. He said he was humbled to receive the award along with his mentor Kuthupady Govinda Das, who taught him cardiology.