Srinagar: Even as doctors are supposed to decide about patient care at hospitals, in a bizarre development, the Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS) Soura here has made engineers party to clinical decision-making, drawing flak from medical fraternity, which has termed it a crude joke with the profession.
Believe it or not, for meeting on specialized clinical issues like bone marrow transplant and chemotherapy to cancer patients, the SKIMS administration now invites senior engineers, apart from doctors. This is not any hearsay but result of administrative decision in vogue for two months.
Official documents, a copy of which lies with Kashmir Observer, reveals that at least six of the twelve experts signatory to decisions taken with regard to treatment of cancer patients, happen to be engineers.
These include one Chief Engineer, two Superintending Engineers and three Executive Engineers including those from Civil, Electrical and Mechanical divisions. The other six are doctors, mainly surgeons.
The documents reveal that first such formal meeting was held on September 9, 2016, whereas since then the engineering staff is part and parcel of clinical decision making something which has irked the medical professionals, who termed it undue interference with their specialized work.
The engineers working at the SKIMS, on the other hand have equally questioned the wisdom of holding such joint meetings. Documents reveal that when engineers were party to the discussions, doctors were discussing RBCs and platelets.
It has been decided that the Department of Clinical Haemotology would either only treat disease of RBCs and platelets or if any of them is interested in treating WBC disorders then they would be managed under the umbrella of Department of Medical Oncology. It has been decided that the Sub-Specialities like Pediatric Oncology & Pediatric Hematology would function under the Umbrella of Department of Medical Oncology, reads a copy of the minutes of the meeting duly signed by the Chief Engineer, Superintending Engineers and Executive Engineers at the hospital.
The Bone Marrow Transplantation would be done jointly by the Departments of Medical Oncology and CI, Haemotology and patients will be listed in one list, which shall remain under the overall control of Medical Oncology. The Department of Radiation Oncology abandon the practice of giving Chemotheraphy with immediate effect. In this behalf, it has been decided that they will only deal with radiation aspects and chemotheraphy if needed on concurrent basis, reads another clause of the decisions which engineers are signatory to.
One of the engineers who attended the meeting said initially he was hesitant to sign the decisions as the medical vocabulary sounded Greece to him. But I was asked by my colleagues not to create any scene and sign the minutes of the meeting in the larger interest of new cooperation between doctors and engineers, he said. Since then engineers are often a party to meetings on medicine but end up speaking nothing on issues of medical sciences.
When contacted a senior official in the SKIMS administration downplayed the matte saying the engineers are called to such meetings so that doctors coordinate with them in execution of civil or other works. Same is true for meetings related to cancer treatment, he added.
The doctors, however, questioned the administrative wisdom. Meetings on coordination with our engineering brethren have been a part and parcel of SKIMS since its inception. But meetings on coordination are held separately and not that you invite engineers for clinical decision-making. This amounts to disrespect for both the professions, said a group of senior medicos.
They said it was equally illegal for professionals from one trait to be signatory to decisions pertaining to another trait.
Can medical doctors ever be signatory to a technical paper on generation of electricity? they asked adding Lets not make a mess of professional responsibilities.
They said the issue of engineers being signatory to clinical decisions has turned into joke among the doctors and even paramedics at the SKIMS.
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