Officials were not aware about Charaka Shapath, says Madurai Medical College student council
After the dean was removed for allowing students to take the oath instead of the Hippocratic oath, the council says that its members had taken the decision.
The students’ council of Tamil Nadu’s Madurai Medical College on Monday claimed that none of the officials of the educational institution were aware that first-year students had taken the Maharshi Charaka Shapath instead of the Hippocratic Oath, reported The Hindu.
At a press conference, the students’ body president, Jothis Kumaravel, said that it was the council’s decision to go ahead with the Maharishi Charaka Shapath since the National Medical Commission had recommended it.
The clarification came a day after the Tamil Nadu Health Department removed A Rathinavel, the dean of the Madurai Medical College, from his post for allowing students to take the Maharshi Charaka Shapath.
The Hippocratic Oath, attributed to ancient Greek physician Hippocrates, is an ethical code that medical students swear to uphold when they take up the profession. While there is no single accepted version of the document, the oath in India generally calls upon students to practice their profession with conscience and dignity, put the health of patients first and respect their privacy.
The Charaka Shapath, or Charaka oath, is derived from a passage in the Charaka Samhita – a Sanskrit text on ayurveda. The passage has dos and don’ts for medical students.
On April 2, the National Medical Commission had recommended that the Charaka Shapath should replace the Hippocratic Oath in Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery, or MBBS, courses. However, Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya had told Parliament that the Charaka Shapath would be optional and not be forced on students.
At Monday’s press conference, the students’ body chief Kumaravel said that since his batch was following the competency-based medical education prescribed by the National Medical Commission since 2019, the students followed the regulatory body’s guidelines for taking the oath.
“We have been following the NMC guidelines that stated that Charaka Shapath can be recommended to newly inducted students, but that is not mandatory,” he said, according to India Today. “There was no communication to us that only Hippocratic oath should be taken and not Charaka Shapath until yesterday [Sunday].”
Kumaravel said that since the oath-taking ceremony was organised in a hurried manner, the students’ council failed to inform the authorities about the change in oath to the advisory committee. He added that the students had taken oath only in English and not Sanskrit as it had been reported in a section of media, according to The Indian Express.