This decision has attracted the ire of gastroenterologists working in AIIMS who have opposed the decision and have subsequently moved the Central Appellate Tribunal seeking respite
In a case that has irked the medical community at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), a doctor who is not a qualified gastroenterologist has been named as the head of department of gastroenterology.
After Dr S K Acharya retired from the post of Head of Department on October 31 this year, the director’s office at AIIMS sent out a circular on Tuesday appointing Dr Umesh Kapil, a post-graduate doctor in Community Medicine as HoD of Gastroenterology department.
This decision has attracted the ire of gastroenterologists working in AIIMS who have opposed the decision and have subsequently moved the Central Appellate Tribunal (CAT) seeking respite.
A division bench of the CAT on November 3 issued a notice to AIIMS and the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) seeking to know the rationale behind the appointment.
MoHFW secretary C K Mishra and director, AIIMS, Dr M C Mishra remained unavailable for comments.
As per the notifications of AIIMS’ faculty cell, while the study of gastroenterology, a field that entails five years of MBBS, followed by three years of post-graduate study in Internal Medcine and an additional three years of super-specialty study in Gastromedicine, qualifying for a teaching post in Human Nutrition Unit involves pursuing three years of PG in Preventive and Social Medicine, General Medicine, Paediatrics after MBBS or a PhD in human nutrition.
“Gastroenterology and community medicine are two fields as different as chalk and cheese. How will a doctor who specialises in PSM understand the nitty gritties of gastro? As an HoD one has to design teaching curriculum for students, one has to see patients suffering from gastric problems including life threatening ones like liver cirrhosis etc. How is this move of appointing a doctor from another specialty in gastro department as a head justifiable,”said Dr Anoop Saraya, Professor, Department of Gastroenterology and Human Nutrition Unit, AIIMS.
Dr Kapil works in the Human Nutrition Unit, which at the most can work alongside Dept of Gastro, but cannot supercede it, said doctors at AIIMS. “There are multiple memorandums which reiterate that Depts of Gastro and Human Nutrition are separate entities. The HoD of Gastro has in past been made head of Human Nutrition Unit and not vice versa,” said a doctor on condition of anonymity.
Shockingly, the decision from director Dr M C Mishra’s office to appoint a clinically non-qualified doctor as an HoD of gastro department does not take into consideration the consensus formed by Dr Acharya and his team in two letters dated September 8 and November 28. The letters which take joint consensus of eight faculty members opined that the next HoD should be a clinician with adequate clinical experience, who knows how to conduct endoscopies and laboratory tests related to discipline.
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