Allopathy and ayurveda: A brief study in difference

Allopathy and ayurveda: A brief study in difference

Rema.Nagarajan@timesgroup.com

12.12.2020

Ayurveda practitioners are seeking equivalence with allopathic doctors in doing certain surgeries, but there seems to be a vast difference in the amount of training received in the systems. Everything from minimum number of beds in teaching hospitals to bed occupancy and the outpatient attendance required in a medical college to be allowed to do undergraduate and postgraduate training is much less for ayurveda colleges than for allopathic ones.

Barely a quarter of the 414 ayurveda colleges have 100 seats. Nearly two-thirds (64%) of UG ayurveda seats are in colleges with 60 seats or less, which need to have just a 60-bedded teaching hospital with 40% occupancy, or about 24 beds occupied. Of the 60 beds, beds that must be kept aside for shalakya tantra and shalya tantra (surgeries) are just 25.

In comparison, almost all MBBS colleges have at least 100 MBBS seats and for that they need a 500-bed teaching hospital with 75% occupancy (375 beds) and 120 beds kept aside for general surgery. Thus students who join for postgraduation in surgical specialties in ayurveda would have seen fewer patients and would have had much fewer opportunities to be trained in surgery.

Postgraduation in the surgical disciplines of shalya tantra and shalakya tantra are taught in the same colleges with stipulation of just marginal augmentation of beds, patients, faculty and support staff. If a college has more than ten PG seats in clinical subjects, additional beds in the student-bed ratio of 1:4 will have to provided, unlike at UG level when the ratio is 1:1. Also, the college will have to show 50% bed occupancy the previous . But colleges which have less than ten PG seats can make do with the same facilities as stipulated for undergraduate teaching. Thus clinical material is less in ayurvedic colleges than in allopathic ones.

The outlay required to start an ayurveda college is much less than that for an allopathy college for which the facilities and training mandated are much higher.

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