What purpose does this strike serve?

What purpose does this strike serve?

Abandoning patients is a breach of medical ethics and counter-productive

•  A boy with burn injuries leaves Dhaka Medical College Hospital with his mother on a CNG-run auto-rickshaw failing to receive treatment because the honorary doctors were on a strike   

Hundreds of patients were left without treatment at Dhaka Medical College Hospital when more than 1,000 doctors stopped work to protest the violent attack on honorary physician Mominul Islam, on Saturday night.

There is no justification for a strike which hurts innocent patients, who have no connection to, or influence over the attackers.

Striking accomplishes nothing to help law enforcement authorities catch the people responsible. No useful purpose is served by making patients suffer.

It is one thing to hold a demonstration in support of the victim of a heinous attack and to demand the arrest of perpetrators.  For honorary doctors to show solidarity with colleagues is a natural reaction.

However, it is unacceptable for doctors to disrupt vital healthcare services and leave patients unattended. It not only does nothing to help the victim of the attack, but actively harms patients.

Abandoning patients is a breach of basic medical ethics and wholly counter-productive as it brings the medical profession,  on which everyone relies, into disrepute. 

While we do not agree with the Bangladesh Medical Association’s associated call for symbolic hour long strikes, at least that move  shows a bit more concern for the rights of the public and the responsibilities of doctors.

Regrettably, the ill considered strike action at DCMH diverts attention away genuine issues of concern.  Public hospitals do need to become far better managed and doctors rights to good working conditions deserve to be respected. However, any strike, let alone one about a crime which took place outside a hospital, risks public sympathy and is unjustified.

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Scientists create first living organism

Scientists create first living organism 

The progress has unveiled a new dimension for health care products, experts say

For the first time in history, researchers have created microbes containing artificially-made DNA, expanding the universal genetic code that guides life.

The progress can lead to creation of new antibiotics, vaccines and other medical products not possible with today's bioscience, Fox News reported on Thursday.

The scientists said they created two additions to the normal genetic code, and then prompted bacteria to incorporate these pieces of man-made DNA with few ill effects.

"The cells recognised it as natural," said chemical biologist Floyd Romesberg at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, who led the research group.

The experiment demonstrated the feasibility of life-forms based on a different DNA code, independent experts said.

Eventually, scientists could use an expanded genetic code to design living cells that could make new medical compounds.

By one recent estimate, the market for biologic and protein-based therapies is expected to reach $165 billion a year by 2018.

"Most people thought this wasn't possible," said biochemist Steven Benner at the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution in Gainesville.

Many scientists assumed that a normal cell would ignore any imitated DNA. "He has gone inside a cell and gotten it to work and that is a shock," said Dr. Benner.

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