A Winter in India

These pictures are the brand new building housing the Maulana Azad Dental College. Dental school in India, as in much of the rest of the world other than the U.S., is a Bachelor’s degree program (B.D.S.). Dr. Verma wisely planned for us to visit some classes before we start teaching any, and today were the first two. Right off the bat we saw a custom that we think should be immediately instituted in U.S. colleges. As we entered the classroom, all the students leaped to their feet and stood respectfully until we had taken our places. No one left the room until the lecture was finished, and then only after standing respectfully until after we had left. Yikes! That was both cool and intimidating. The students sit on benches, and packed tightly together so that as many as possible could be in the front two rows. Not a single person at the back of the room.

The first lecture was by one of their oral pathology professors and it was on oral cancer. Lots of clinical pictures and histology, but also the basic science (suppressors, promoters, etc.). There is a very high incidence of oral cancer (12.6 per 100,000) here due to tobacco chewing. He said that 72% of school children ages 8 to 16 in a study conducted in Mumbai use Gutka, a tobacco product that is even available in the school canteens. There are 800,000 deaths per year from oral cancer in India, compared with 7,200 in the U.S. Even though India has three times the total population of the U.S., their death rate is more than one hundred times higher.

P.S. The fact that we were able to make this blog entry tells you that we ate the mutton and have lived to tell the tale. It was actually quite tasty.