Interactive Workshop on Evidence Based Clinical Practices in Ayurveda

Email

Whatsapp

Facebook

Pinterest

Twitter

Copy link

This time RAV has decided to hold the workshop on Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) with an eye on discussion on this currently one of the most burning issues in medical field and try to .find out how we, the Ayurvedic fraternity, can apply this in our day today practice with the huge data base stored in the form of texts and manuscripts dating back thousands of years.

According to Center for Evidence-Based Medicine, EBM is the conscientious, expert and judicious use of current best evidence in making decision about the care of individual patient. We all know that Ayurveda provides customized treatment to individual patient instead of the standard approach as the one offered by contemporary health care system. Throughout India Ayurvedic medical heritage is preserved in forms of manuscripts, texts, and family tradition (mostly guarded as secrets). Individual experiences shared by us have made us believe that Ayurvedic treatment indeed is providing good health care and much more to the society than was thought some two-three decades ago because individual experiences are observed by experts of other systems and confirmed by the modern scientific investigations. However, still we need much to do to make others convincingly believe in this system of medicine and accept this as main stem system of medicine.

Many aspects of medical care depend on individual factors such as quality-, and value-of-life adjustments, which are at present times partially subject to critical judgment and analysis through scientific methods by the experts of the science. However, this field is still developing.

Much more description is available about EBM in Ayurvedic texts including ethical codes that should be observed by both the physician as well as the patient. When such strict codes were in practice it is quite obvious that the treatment regimen documented in the texts were not just vague though are not in vogue presently. But then to convince our own fraternity and professionals of other medical systems we need to learn more on how to make scientific statements, how to do scientific studies and research work, how to present the scientific papers, how to make scientific statements and presentation and so on. Authoritative statements by the medical 'experts' are considered to be least valid form of evidence. All "experts" are now expected to reference their statements to scientific studies, otherwise they would be considered very casual and unscientific. The glaring example is the treatment through jalaukavacharan. The experts of our field, though practice widely, still struggle to convince the students and young PG scholars about its efficacy and mode of action, but allopathic system of medicine has taken a clue out of this and further advanced the application of jalauka (leech) in conditions which are not mentioned directly in the texts, though indirect indication and clear cut mode of action is mentioned in the ancient texts.

**Contents and Sample Pages**