New Delhi: Various persons from the medical profession, academicians, medical practitioners, among them the Indian Medical Association (IMA), have expressed acute discomfort and unhappiness over the National Medical Commission’s new logo featuring a Hindu deity. The Indian Medical Association (IMA) expressing outrage has further called for “rectifying” the logo.
The NMC has, suddenly, rebranded itself with a coloured image of Dhanvantari, the Hindu physician of the gods, at the centre of its logo, and the word ‘Bharat’ written above it. The earlier logo of the NMC had the Ashoka emblem.
The New Indian Express remarked in its report that the new logo has been in use on the official website of the NMC, and “seems to have been introduced clandestinely with no official intimation being given to the media or public.”
The Indian Medical Association’s national president, Dr Sharad Kumar Agarwal called the logo change completely “unnecessary” and called for a renewed focus on medical education not identity.
“They [NMC] are not a political body and should not have political aspirations or try to please their political bosses,” he said.
Dr Sulphi Noohu, the Indian Medical Association’s Kerala president has also told the news agency PTI that a “secular message and way of thinking would have been more appropriate and acceptable” in the logo.
Many medical students, too, expressed their reservations against the logo.
“Last year, the NMC had recommended replacing the Hippocratic Oath with another oath which is regressive and anti-women,” Times of India quoted a student of MBBS at the Calicut Medical College as having said.
NMC changes logo, adds image of ayurveda god https://t.co/u98ebpw3zK
— The Times Of India (@timesofindia) December 1, 2023
Another student at the Ernakulam Medical College said that the change in logo can “only be seen as a gradual process by the Sangh Parivar to saffronise the education sector.” The paper also quotes orthopaedic surgeon George M. Srampickal as having said that the addition of religion and politics to a noble profession like medicine can have “grave consequences in people’s lives.”
The new logo of NMC is unacceptable pic.twitter.com/014mDV8gWO
— Jayakrishnan Menon (@jayanishere) November 30, 2023
On social media, too, several doctors took to expressing outrage.
★Max Private colleges are not giving Stipends
★Every year Colleges are increasing Fees structures
★Resident Doctors are doing 40-40hrs duties
★Doctors facing regular Attack & Suicides
& NMC is busy To change only morphological structures /LOGO#MedTwitter
— Indian Doctor🇮🇳 (@Indian__doctor) December 1, 2023
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