Navigating the Crossroads of Medicine
Dear Readers,
Double Helical, a comprehensive national health magazine, serves as a platform to acknowledge innovations, individuals, products, and services transforming India’s healthcare sector, paving the way for affordable, high-quality, and inclusive healthcare. This month, we explore how medicine is evolving—through conferences that spark movements, crises that demand overhauls, and diseases that continue to challenge public health systems.
Our Cover Story entitled Down with the Corona Dynasty! revisits the legacy—and afterlife—of the coronavirus. The story offers a blistering critique of the fear-fuelled hysteria that outlives the virus’s actual threat. It argues that the COVID narrative continues to cast a long shadow, distracting from far deadlier but less glamorous killers like TB, typhoid and malaria.
In parallel, our second cover piece—Stay Prepared, Not Scared—brings a measured voice to the discussion. As India reports a slight uptick in COVID cases, it points to how India’s public health system—fortified by hybrid immunity, vigilant surveillance, and upgraded infrastructure—is now equipped to handle seasonal fluctuations calmly and effectively. With the calm competence now guiding our response, COVID-19 has become endemic, and with it, our approach must evolve from alarm to adaptation. Together, these two narratives underscore a vital shift: from crisis-driven panic to informed preparedness.
Our Focus section this month is on CAHOCON 2025, a gathering that has transcended its role as an annual medical conference to emerge as a national movement. Held against the backdrop of rising patient expectations and accountability demands, this year’s edition spotlighted pioneering initiatives—from AI-powered diagnostics to eco-conscious hospital designs. But beyond the presentations and showcases, CAHOCON also sparked much-needed conversations on accreditation, patient safety, and the cultural shift needed to embed quality as a default rather than an aspiration.
In Perspective-Anatomy of a Crisis, we dissect the deepening crisis in Medical Education. The story lays bare the gaps—dilapidated infrastructure, a shortage of qualified faculty, rigid syllabi, and fragmented regulatory frameworks. These systemic flaws threaten to erode the very foundation of medical professionalism and produce graduates unfit for the realities of modern healthcare. Reform, if not revolution, is the need of the hour.
Our Spotlight-Deadly Disregard falls on Tropical Killers—a realm of diseases too often neglected despite their devastating reach. The story warns of the storm ahead as the monsoon and post-monsoon seasons approach. Dengue, chikungunya, scrub typhus, leptospirosis and others lurk ominously, and yet India’s weakening commitment to tropical medicine—rooted in a colonial hangover—has left us poorly prepared. The focus must shift urgently from retrospective COVID response to proactive disease prevention.
On World Hypertension Day, we offer a sobering Reflection on a chronic ailment that remains mostly invisible but immensely deadly. In A Silent Assassin, we explore how over 294 million Indians are affected by hypertension—yet a staggering 88 per cent remain undiagnosed or inadequately treated. As lifestyles grow more sedentary and diets saltier, this ‘silent killer’ demands louder attention.
In Insight, we delve into the obscure yet life-crippling world of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS). Decoding a Debilitating Illness examines the clinical enigma that is CFS—where extreme fatigue, cognitive dysfunction, and unrefreshing sleep combine to erode daily functioning. Despite its prevalence, CFS remains under-researched, misdiagnosed, and poorly understood even by clinicians.
As we round off this issue, we invite readers to recognise that India’s medical landscape is not just about breakthroughs and technologies, but also about confronting uncomfortable truths. From institutional apathy in medical colleges to the return of age-old killers in newer disguises, the real battle lies in the balance between preparedness and prioritisation. This issue of Double Helical attempts to start—and sustain—that conversation. In short, this issue is packed with interesting, mind blowing and thought-provoking stories. Happy reading!.
Happy reading!
Thanks and regards
Amresh K Tiwary,
Editor-in-Chief