Allopathy and Ayurveda
Dr. Chandrashekhar R. Desai is an ENT surgeon and an alumnus of the Armed Forces Medical College (AFMC), Pune. He has been practising and teaching Shiatsu, a form of Acupressure, since 1980. Since 1993, Dr Desai has been regularly conducting workshops on Stress Management for corporates in India and other countries, including Germany, Switzerland, England, Holland, Nepal, Korea. He has written and published more than 20 scientific papers published at various national and international conferences. He has developed a technology in health assessment and health enhancement. He is a prolific writer and has authored several books in English and Marathi. He is a Founder President of Navkshitij, an organization for residential rehabilitation of Persons with Intellectual Disabilities (PwIDs), in Pune.
Allopathy and Ayurveda are two different medical systems that grew in two different cultures and two different world views. Fortunately for me, I was trained as an ENT surgeon in Allopathy and got married to Neelima who did her Ph.D. in Ayurveda. Life threw some challenges and led me to study Chinese medicine too. Exposure to three different medical systems made me question a general opinion that, except Allopathy, no other "pathy"; has a scientific basis. I realized that the Ayurvedic worldview is as logical and scientific as the Allopathic worldview; if not more.
There is a fundamental difference in the world view of the West and that of the East. Western scientists work on the premise that is world is made of matter and energy. The East works on the premise that the world is made of ever emerging qualities and properties –Guna and Dharma. We are all familiar with the impact of the western world view. In the talk we shall explore the validity and the potential impact of the Eastern world view.
We will try to find out how the two approaches can be integrated for the benefit of science, medicine and humanity.
