The Backward Mentality

Where would medical science be without technological advancement? What if the majority of medical practitionars boycotted the CAT Scan or MRI saying that is is unnecessary or unnatural? Seeing the amazing speeds at which medical research has advanced and continue to advance with the help of the latest technologies like the electron microscope, Antibody studies and now even Gene Therapy, one would think that doctors and medical colleges would be the first to embrace technologies. Not so at JIPMER.

A decade or more ago Internet was almost unheard of in Puducherry. There were few cyber cafes and they charged over Rs 65 per hour. But yet the internet had been up in the rest of the world for over two decades already. The internet and the information highway that it offers has been embraced with open arms by all professionals (except in India I guess).

In the last few years there has been an exponential rise in the number of students owning computers and laptops at JIPMER. This is natural with the advancement in computing and the drop in their prices. Computers are such useful tools for medical students but the backward administration at JIPMER fail to grasp it. So while students at colleges all over Europe and America and even some Asian contries like Malaysia took their Laptops to their lectures, any student known to own such a machine at JIPMER is scorned upon by the professors. He/She is deemed to be not interested in studies.

You see, these professors, who seems to be living in the 1960s, do not seem to know that medical software is a booming industry. That there are websites dedicated to medicine and medical students. What these old timers think is that computers are only for porn.

With the rise in the number of computers in the Hostel, there arose an interest among the students in getting internet in their rooms. They dreamt about the ease with which they can get extra information. The thought of the number of interesting websites out there was like a mirage in a desert. Tools, pneumonics, student aides, lectures, past papers, tests that they can take to check their knowledge, interesting X-Rays or ECGs that they can see and learn about, keep up with the latest breakthroughs in medicine. The internet offered so much and more.

Instead of encouraging this interest. Instead of guiding these students to the best online resources. Instead of teaching these students (some of whom had never touched a PC before) their way around the World Wide Web. Internet was denied. The reason? The wisdom of the warden was that the students would watch porn.

I wonder if there is another premier college in the world who denied their students internet for fear of them watching porn. Then why not deny any books in the hostel too, becuase there are porn magazines and porn novels too.

JIPMER will never top the college charts as long as such idiotic things continue to happen.