Can India afford not to Have more Occupational Health Physicians?

Dr. Gupta and Dr. Joshi mentioned how few physicians were trained in occupational health and the need for foreign medical professionals for training. Both Dr. Gupta and Dr. Joshi had been trained in the UK and US and hoped to eventually have training occupational health training for physicians in India. They were not speaking of a years of training but a short course or some lectures. They said if their hospital advertised lots of doctors would come. I think that if we had one of the members of our medical advisory board fly to Delhi to give a lecture doctors would be willing to pay to attend. The money we gathered from these fees could be used to start an educational project for workers sponsored by Dr. Joshi and his staff at the Center for Occupational and Environmental Health. When I suggested this to Dr. Gupta he thought is was a really good idea. He agreed that doctors would take the lecture more seriously if they had to pay an admission fee and that this would be a good way to collect funds for his efforts. This is exactly the kind of thing I think our organization should be doing: empowering people to take action within their own communities.