Career options are growing for BAMS, Ayurvedic Doctors: Principal Govt Ayurvedic College, Assam

Prof Rama Kanta Sharma, the Principal of Government Ayurvedic College & Hospital, Guwahati spoke to Shiksha.com and he told us how Ayurveda is growing in the post pandemic period and giving more career opportunities to their BAMS as well as postgraduate doctors.

Here are the excerpts from the interview:

What are career options after doing BAMS and postgraduation from Government Ayurvedic College & Hospital, Guwahati?

There are great career opportunities for both our BAMS and Postgraduate doctors, generally, our BAMS doctors practice in the periphery and in the city area also. Sometimes they are engaged with some private clinics, nursing homes, and some private organisations as well as there are opportunities in National Health Mission. They have recruited BAMS doctors as consultant medical officers and in their Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram (RBSK) where they want to screen various diseases with the help of our BAMS doctors.

Our postgraduate doctors are also working as specialists in the current sectors – very recently GOI has also recruited Ayurvedic doctors for the cantonment area hospitals, so now other sectors are also coming to hire our Ayurvedic doctors.

What are the research areas of your institute?

Our institute has postgraduate departments, out of three clinical departments, one is Shalya which is surgery, one is obstetrical gynaecology and another is medicine. Another three departments – pathology, the basic principle of Ayurveda and another is anatomy, that is study, so the total intake capacity is 30. We are researching in the area of neuro muscular diseases, lifestyle diseases diabetes, and obesity, especially last year we also started drug rehabilitation through Ayurveda and Agni karma, so various type of pain we want to combat by applying our para surgical processes. Next is an integrated cancer clinic, where we are also giving terminal care to the patients and also we have an infertility clinic. So, we have started all these recently.

What are your plans and vision to make the college better in terms of education?

This is a very old institute and also established in Jalukbari, so we aim to develop manpower by making specialised doctors and also doing some research. We want to upgrade this institute to Ayush university because there are three homoeopathic colleges in Assam, one Ayurveda college and another Ayurveda college is proposed by the state government which is 100 km away from this institute and GOI is pleased to announce about INR 70 crore for the establishment of the institute. So, we are thinking that if our institute is upgraded to the Ayush university or Ayurveda university, there will be more scope for research. Also, next year, the institute will complete 75 years and our honourable health minister is also interested that this institute should be declared a centre of excellence.

How pandemic affected Government Ayurvedic College & Hospital, Guwahati and what are the changes you are observing after two years of the pandemic?

During the pandemic, definitely, the academic part of the institute was hampered but being a medical institute our college was declared as the Covid care hospital. So, all the doctors, faculty members and students were busy with Covid activities to combat the pandemic. After two years of the pandemic now normalcy is prevailing and classes are being conducted offline.

Now for Ayurvedic colleges, the state government has declared that for patients there is no mandatory RTPCR test required, so we are allowing patients even without Covid tests, but at the same time, we are also maintaining the Covid appropriate behaviour. 

How did the Government Ayurvedic College & Hospital, Guwahati manage during the lockdown period, what were the challenges?

There were many challenges, our faculty members were running even other Covid care centres too apart from Government Ayurvedic College & Hospital, Guwahati. They were fulfilling their Covid duties to other places also. But despite the challenges, we also noticed that during the pandemic time, Ayurvedic medicine and consultation got more acceptance among people, and the demand for Ayurvedic medicines like Chawanprash and Kadha have increased.

What challenges did the students face during the lockdown period?

Their normal classes definitely got hampered but our final year students and intern students got engaged with the Covid duties, all the time they were attending the patients but for the lower classes especially those pre-clinical and non-clinical classes like first-year students, we arranged online classes, the students attended their classes from home during the lockdown period.

Recently, WHO Global Centre for Traditional Medicine has been established in Gujarat to position AYUSH systems across the globe. It is the first and only global outposted Centre (office) for traditional medicine across the globe, how do you see the development?

It will have a good outcome that the WHO selected India for its first such Centre for traditional medicine. I am also one of the alumni of Gujarat Ayurveda University, way back in 1990, I completed my postgraduation from Gujarat Jamnagar, which is a very prestigious institute. 

The global centre gives a boon for our sector and physicians and there will be more scope for traditional medicine. Our Union Ayush Minister is also originally from Assam, he was the ex-Chief Minister of Assam and he has given more importance to developing AYUSH in the northeast area. In our college, the panchakarma and pharmacy to develop through the government of India fund.

Read more:

• Students have multiple opportunities after BAMS: GS Ayurveda Medical College and Hospital Principal
• Online class was a big challenge: Nandini Joshi, Principal, Lokmanya Homoeopathic Medical College