Mangaluru : Stating that there is a crisis of values in society, former chairman of the University Grants Commission (UGC) Hari Guatam said here on Saturday that “it is high time that the teaching of human values is introduced in medical education”.

He was delivering the 20th convocation address of Manipal University at TMA Pai International Convention Centre. Around 500 undergraduates and postgraduates received their degrees.

“It has become imperative that value education should is an additional integral part of the medical graduate curriculum, in the context of the present degeneration in moral, social, ethical and patriotic values both in personal and public life. Value education has therefore now become the need of the day, as never before,” he said.

He said that there has been a steady erosion of ethics in the medical profession. “It is not only that the rot has set in, but it is spreading like a conflagration with little hope of control,”he said.

Mr. Gautam said that the current image of doctors was not very good. Doctors have lost admiration and respect from public. “We have allowed ourselves to become operating room technicians. We are now viewed as overpaid, arrogant super-technicians. The distance with our patients is increasing,” he said.

He said that the advent of machines, gadgets and sophisticated technology has adversely affected the doctor-patient relationship. Patients are made to relate more to machines than to doctors, and doctors relate more to sophisticated gadgetry than to patients.

“We seem to have forgotten that medicine means care, compassion and a special empathy for the patient,” he said.

He said advances in medical technology have further provoked the debate on medical ethics today. “Is there really a need to redefine the ethical, human and social responsibility of a doctor? Ethics are ethics. They can never be debated. We need to do a serious introspection and not be afraid of accepting our guilt.”

He advised graduates not to go after money but realise human values.