Hyderabad: A Parliamentary committee has stated that medical education has been neglected by the Medical Council of India. The report was tabled in the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday,The panel called for restructuring the MCI, stating that its current composition is “biased” against public health goals and is an “exclusive club” of doctors from the corporate and private sector.
The committee said the elected MCI neither represents “professional excellence nor its ethos”, and that more than half the members are from corporate or private sector. “The committee is surprised to note that even doctors nominated... to represent state governments and the Central government have been nominated from corporate private hospitals which are not only highly commercialised and provide care at exorbitant cost but have also been found to be violating value frameworks,” the report said.
With a shortage of 35,000 teachers and 20 per cent dummies, the health ministry has taken a stern view of the manner in which colleges are being approved. A senior teacher said, “The quality of teaching has taken a huge hit. While the number of seats has increased, there are many students who are not able to understand the subject. Also, the teacher finds it very difficult to explain to so many students.”
Hospital bedside learning, which was an important part of the curriculum, is not being practised in the right spirit. A senior doctor added, “In private medical college hospitals, only 20 per cent are real. The rest are dummies. These patients come during the time of MCI inspection and the regulators go by the ‘head count’.”The principal of a medical college said, “The system has been changed to benefit a few people.”
MCI member Dr Ramesh Reddy said, “The MCI has been under the Centre with its body of governors for eight years. Why did they fail to bring about major changes? For the last three years MCI is a body of doctors. It is the MCI which is demanding common pre-medical entrance tests, and that will help do away with all these problems”
