The three-member committee deputed by the Union Health Minister to probe the alleged involvement of MCI chief Ketan Desai in a bribery case inspected the premises of Patiala's Gian Sagar Medical College and hospital on Thursday. Desai was held in connection with a bribe of Rs 2 crore for granting recognition to the college.

The team, headed by Additional Secretary K Desiraju, was accompanied by officials of the Punjab government and checked the records of the medical college. "While, the principal, students and other staff have been questioned, the members will now discuss among themselves and submit the report to the government by Monday," sources in the Union Health Ministry said.

The members also videographed and photographed the premises. Sources said that nearly 300 students are currently enrolled in the college.

Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad had set up a three-member fact-finding team on April 25 to look into the allegations. The Ministry is likely to take a view on the earlier decisions of the MCI granting recognition to colleges depending on the report of the team, officials said.

"Save our profession from acquiring a tainted image," doctors exclaim.

Rage against Dr Ketan Desai, head of the Medical Council of India who was caught for allegedly accepting a bribe of Rs2 crore, is growing all over the country.

A nation-wide signature campaign has been initiated by the medical fraternity demanding the formation of a union to save "our profession from acquiring a tainted image due to MCI's amendments drafted by Desai which favour some pharmaceutical giants," reads the email, now being circulated, asking doctors to join the campaign. It urges them to "Join the cause, condemn MCI amendments' and 'demand a reversal'.

A doctor who is behind this campaign said, "About 3,000 doctors have joined us from all over the country."

After forming this union - which demands reversal of many dubious decisions that Desai undertook while heading the MCI - the members plan to hold demonstrations in front of the MCI offices calling for the removal of the name of Desai from the Indian Medical Register, till the inquiry in the present scam is over -- or forever if the charges are proved.

Some doctors from Gujarat have welcomed the step and said on condition of anonymity that this was long overdue.

Sources from a medical association said, "Many knew that he was corrupt, but no doctors or doctors' associations could earlier come forward to demand that he must be removed. The worst thing was that he not only headed the Gujarat and Indian Medical Councils, but was also a president of the World Medical Association - and these key positions he held for long time despite the fact that he was almost constantly under a cloud."

Many medicos also revealed that elections in MCI were never transparent. "Unless elections are made transparent, there is no hope for fairness," medical sources say. A doctor who has joined the signature campaign added: "The election procedure for MCI needs to be changed with immediate effect, otherwise there is no guarantee that the next head will not be corrupt." Sources behind the signature drive said that to make malpractices difficult, major changes in the rules and regulations of medical councils are required.

Meanwhile, the demand for the removal of Dr Ketan Desai as president of the MCI has evoked mixed response in the city, though the development has shocked and silenced the city's medical fraternity. Unable to digest or fathom the stunning revelations that have come to light after CBI's raid on Desai, the medicos are unable to clearly voice their reaction to the developments.

While many eminent medicos preferred to remain silent on the issue, calling it as 'sensitive', others heading various medical associations refrained to comment, saying they seldom have information on Desai's activities.

But the city's medical fraternity has by and large alienated itself from Desai, and there has been a tremendous condemnation flowing in from the entire medical fraternity of other states.

A growing number of male couples from Australia and other Western countries are hiring surrogates in India to bear children, but that might no longer be possible if a draft bill to regulate IVF in India becomes law.

R.S. Sharma, the secretary of the committee writing a bill to govern assisted reproductive technology (ART), told the Sydney Morning Herald that unless gay and lesbian relationships are legalised in India, gay couples would be excluded from hiring surrogates.

Delhi's High Court recently overturned a 150-year-old section of the country's penal code that outlawed ''carnal intercourse against the order of nature''.

However, gay activists warn this ruling, which in effect decriminalised sodomy, does not legalise gay relationships, leaving the status of such relationships unclear.

"If our government does not permit gay relationships, then it certainly will not be permitted for foreign gay couples to come to this country and have a [surrogacy] agreement," said Dr Sharma, who is the deputy director-general of the reproductive health and nutrition division at the India Council of Medical Research.

The paper quoted Allen-Drury, a resident of Australia's Blue Mountains area, as saying that changes to India's laws would be a great disappointment, if passed.

The draft bill could make it difficult for all Australian couples to use Indian surrogates.

One stumbling block would be a requirement that foreign countries guarantee they will accept the surrogate child as a citizen - before a surrogacy could begin.

Dr Sharma said foreign couples would have to obtain a document from their embassy or foreign ministry pledging the surrogate child citizenship of their country. "Only then will they be entitled to sign an agreement with a surrogate or an ART clinic," he said.

''Under the Australian Citizenship Act, there are no guarantees,'' a spokesman for the Department of Immigration and Citizenship said on Friday.

A hospital in Spain announced that it had carried out the world's first full-face transplant. The Vall d'Hebron Hospital in Barcelona said the patient, a young man, was given an entirely new face, including skin, jaws, chin, nose, cheeks, teeth and muscles. It said the 24-hour operation was performed in late March by a 30-member medical team.

In a statement on Friday, the hospital said the patient lost his face in an accident five years ago and has since been unable to swallow, speak, or breathe properly, and had to breathe and be fed through tubes. Speaking on Friday during a news conference at the hospital, Doctor Joan Pere Barret, who led the medical team that carried out facial transplant, said the patient asked to look in a mirror one week after the surgery, "and he reacted very calmly and with satisfaction" and in writing said "he said he was very grateful and satisfied." Dr Barret said that the man "absolutely does not look like a donor patient."

Barret declined to name the patient or give details of the accident in which the man lost most of his face, saying only that he was a Spaniard between 20 and 40 years old and was recovering well. The man cannot yet speak, eat or smile, but can see and swallow saliva, the surgeon said. The patient underwent psychiatric tests before the operation to determine if he would be able to confront having a totally new face, the hospital said. He is expected to remain hospitalised for two months.

Other transplant experts lauded the surgery but were not sure it could technically be called 'full-face.'

In Britain, the UK Facial Transplantation Research Team called the Spanish operation "the most complex face transplantation operation there has probably been in the world to date." It stopped short, however, of calling it the world's first full-face transplant. Barret said the operation involved removing what was left of the man's face and giving him a replacement "in one piece."

Barret said there have been 10 partial face transplant operations carried out in the world so far but that this is the first one involving a person's whole face. The world's first partial face transplant was carried out on a Isabelle Dinoire in France in November 2005. The 38 year old divorced mother of two received a new nose, chin and mouth from a brain-dead donor after being mauled by her pet Labrador. The 15-hour operation took place at the Amiens Teaching Hospital.

It is said that courage and fortitude can overcome all odds. This especially holds true for actress Lisa Ray, who went through a rough patch for the past few months when diagnosed with cancer. In the face of such adversity, people either give up or chose to fight back. Lisa chose the latter and has today emerged a winner!

The pretty actress was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma, a rare form of cancer on June 23, 2009. It's an incurable cancer of the white blood cells
known as plasma cells and had taken root in her bone marrow. She went through none of the expected notions of panic, despair or shock. Instead, she was optimistic from the word go and met it head on. She began the first batch of treatments on July 2, 2009, mere weeks after the discovery. It takes a lot of resilience to face such trying times. She battled with medication, steroids, treatments like Velcade and Revlimid, and the continuous hunger that went with the condition. Chemotherapy caused her to lose her lustrous locks but she remained unfazed, even when her bald pictures were circulated in the media.


All those efforts today now paid off. Lisa is now cured of the last traces of the disease. The Canadian-born 38-year old has said on her blog that the experience has inspired and humbled her. The optimistic stunner is now set for a new phase of life. Lisa, who has appeared in films like Kasoor and Water, will soon be seen in Cooking With Stella. She is also working on UniGlobe Entertainment's cancer docu-drama titled 1 a Minute featuring cancer survivors like Olivia Newton-John, Diahann Carroll, Melissa Etheridge and Mumtaz. The spunky lady wants to spread awareness about the lesser known form of cancer.

We wish her good luck in her quest!