Medical approaches available

Indian law does not treat all medical practice as one profession. A doctor of modern medicine (allopathy) qualifies with an MBBS degree and is registered under the National Medical Commission, which replaced the Medical Council of India under the National Medical Commission Act, 2019^[1]. Ayurveda, together with Unani, Siddha and Sowa-Rigpa, is regulated by the National Commission for Indian System of Medicine under its own Act of 2020^[2], and homeopathy by the National Commission for Homoeopathy under a separate Act of the same year^[3]. The Ministry of Ayush oversees the traditional systems at the level of government policy.

• A practitioner is registered in one system and is expected to practise within it.
• Each regulator keeps its own register, sets its own curriculum and hears complaints about its own practitioners.
• The degree tells you the system: MBBS for modern medicine, BAMS for Ayurveda, BHMS for homeopathy.

The practice has a doctor in each system for men's sexual and reproductive health. Some men come wanting a particular system; others want to understand the differences before they decide. Each system page explains what that system is, how its practitioners are trained, how a consultation in it proceeds, what it offers for men's sexual health and, plainly, what the published evidence does and does not show for it. The pages do not rank the systems against each other. They describe each one so that the decision you make is an informed one.

• Modern medicine relies on diagnosis by history, examination and tests, and on treatments tested in controlled trials.
• Ayurveda uses its own classical framework of assessment and herbal and lifestyle measures.
• Homeopathy uses individualised remedies chosen by its own principles.

Every statement about what a treatment does is tied to a numbered source. Where a treatment is recommended in clinical guidelines, the page says so; where trials are small, few or conflicting, it says that; and where a practice rests on tradition rather than trial evidence, it is labelled as traditional practice rather than dressed up as science. These evidence statements are drafts written for review by a doctor before they are relied on, and the pages say what evidence does not establish as clearly as what it does.

• Guideline-supported: recommended by clinical practice guidelines on the basis of trial evidence.
• Limited or mixed: some trials exist, but they are small, few, of uncertain quality or disagree.
• Traditional practice: used within the system on the basis of its own texts and experience rather than controlled trials.
• Insufficient: not enough reliable evidence to say whether it works.

Whichever system you choose, the consultation is a private video or audio call with a registered practitioner of that system. India's Telemedicine Practice Guidelines of 2020 allow a registered practitioner to prescribe after a remote consultation only when reasonably satisfied that the information gathered is adequate, and they restrict which medicines may be prescribed that way^[4]. A prescription therefore follows the consultation, never the booking. Some symptoms need an in-person examination or urgent care whatever system you prefer, and the doctor will tell you when that applies.

• Book a consultation with the system you prefer, or ask for guidance on choosing.
• The doctor takes your history and may ask for tests before advising any treatment.
• You decide whether to go ahead with what the doctor advises.