Tamil Nadu’s Department of Health and Family Welfare on Sunday relieved Madurai Medical College Dean A. Rathinavel of his post and placed him in “vacancy reserve”, a day after the first-year students of the college took the ‘Maharishi Charak Shapath’ (a modified oath), instead of the Hippocratic Oath, during the ‘white coat ceremony’.
The Department said in a statement that replacing the Hippocratic Oath, taken for long by students joining medical course and doctors getting into practice, was condemnable.
Health and Family Welfare Minister Ma. Subramanian has asked Director of Medical Education (DME) R. Narayanababu to initiate a departmental inquiry.