<p>The Supreme Court’s direction to scrap the plethora of existing bodies that govern professional education and replace them with one regulatory mechanism that will oversee the working of professional colleges, has not come a day too soon. The proliferation of sub-standard professional colleges in the country speak volumes for the ineffectiveness of regulatory bodies like the Medical Council of India (MCI) and the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE).<br /><br />The apex court, especially, had medical education in mind after the spate of irregular medical admissions in many states. The health ministry which depends on the recommendations of the Medical Council and the Dental Council respectively, must also share the responsibility for this anamolous state of affairs.<br /><br />Of the hundreds of medical colleges in the country, a mere 25 can truly claim to be institutions of excellence. The casual manner in which the so called regulators of healthcare/medical education have gone about recognising and even approving these colleges has resulted in mediocre teaching and learning facilities.<br /><br />Admissions to UG and PG courses have been shockingly engineered through middlemen and education brokers, ignoring all accepted norms. Such blatant violation of rules and regulations may have resulted in churning out thousands of sub-standard doctors in the country. No wonder that the highest court in the land is provoked to react so sternly.<br /><br />Medical education is not all about passing the Common Entrance Test (CET) and gaining admission into a prestigious college. Its goal should be to generate “competent and ethical physicians” according to the Declaration of no less a body than the World Medical Association. It is not all about gaining knowledge and skills alone. The WMA rightly calls it learning to practice “values, behaviour and ethics.” Can a CET conducted in various states in this country ensure this?<br /><br />Medical education in India is a fragmented process, largely driven by social and financial requirements of the students. Many teenagers, influenced by parental and peer pressures, opt for a career in medicine because it is impressive, influential and lucrative. If the same advantages can be reaped by a career in the civil services, they even opt for the the IAS examination after qualifying to be a doctor. Just as qualified engineers opt for management studies, we find medical students swapping their courses and careers thereby wasting the education they received in a medical college, while at the same time, depriving society of a committed physician.<br /><br />Enormous waste<br />Regulatory bodies like the MCI should have taken serious note of this enormous wastage, and introduced reforms like raising the minimum age for medical college admissions, as is practiced in the US where a basic four-year degree is mandatory to study medicine which ensures more maturity in young aspiring doctors. Why, their entrance tests for medical colleges also take note of a student’s aptitude for social service, in addition to her ability to complete the course successfully. <br /><br />On the contrary, medical education in several states in this country is driven by monetary considerations for the trustees of those colleges. Instead of training their students to become caring physicians, such colleges encourage them to convert their professions into money making enterprises by levying exorbitant capitation fees at the time of admission which they are covertly encouraged to recover from their patients in the course of their future careers as doctors. When regulatory bodies fail to correct these discrepancies, they have no right to continue as such. The Supreme Court’s directive is the appropriate answer to these fundamental issues.<br /><br />In 1982, the Government of India issued a statement advocating “a thorough overhaul of the existing approaches to the training and education of medical and health personnel” in the country. Towards this end, it stressed the formulation of a health and medical education policy. That was 27 years ago. We are still following an archaic system of medical education where the emphasis is more on acute care of diseases rather than preparing future doctors for the challenges of preventive medicine. <br /><br />The clinical practice that they receive is in the controlled environment of tertiary care hospitals. Whereas, in a country like India, doctors need to be trained in various settings that qualify them to work in community hospitals, nursing homes and hospices. Medical colleges must prepare students to understand and treat long term chronic disorders that bring a large section of patients to hospitals. Above all, medical colleges must foster proper professional values in our future physicians. When the colleges themselves lack these values, can they hope to inculcate them in their wards?</p>
<p>The Supreme Court’s direction to scrap the plethora of existing bodies that govern professional education and replace them with one regulatory mechanism that will oversee the working of professional colleges, has not come a day too soon. The proliferation of sub-standard professional colleges in the country speak volumes for the ineffectiveness of regulatory bodies like the Medical Council of India (MCI) and the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE).<br /><br />The apex court, especially, had medical education in mind after the spate of irregular medical admissions in many states. The health ministry which depends on the recommendations of the Medical Council and the Dental Council respectively, must also share the responsibility for this anamolous state of affairs.<br /><br />Of the hundreds of medical colleges in the country, a mere 25 can truly claim to be institutions of excellence. The casual manner in which the so called regulators of healthcare/medical education have gone about recognising and even approving these colleges has resulted in mediocre teaching and learning facilities.<br /><br />Admissions to UG and PG courses have been shockingly engineered through middlemen and education brokers, ignoring all accepted norms. Such blatant violation of rules and regulations may have resulted in churning out thousands of sub-standard doctors in the country. No wonder that the highest court in the land is provoked to react so sternly.<br /><br />Medical education is not all about passing the Common Entrance Test (CET) and gaining admission into a prestigious college. Its goal should be to generate “competent and ethical physicians” according to the Declaration of no less a body than the World Medical Association. It is not all about gaining knowledge and skills alone. The WMA rightly calls it learning to practice “values, behaviour and ethics.” Can a CET conducted in various states in this country ensure this?<br /><br />Medical education in India is a fragmented process, largely driven by social and financial requirements of the students. Many teenagers, influenced by parental and peer pressures, opt for a career in medicine because it is impressive, influential and lucrative. If the same advantages can be reaped by a career in the civil services, they even opt for the the IAS examination after qualifying to be a doctor. Just as qualified engineers opt for management studies, we find medical students swapping their courses and careers thereby wasting the education they received in a medical college, while at the same time, depriving society of a committed physician.<br /><br />Enormous waste<br />Regulatory bodies like the MCI should have taken serious note of this enormous wastage, and introduced reforms like raising the minimum age for medical college admissions, as is practiced in the US where a basic four-year degree is mandatory to study medicine which ensures more maturity in young aspiring doctors. Why, their entrance tests for medical colleges also take note of a student’s aptitude for social service, in addition to her ability to complete the course successfully. <br /><br />On the contrary, medical education in several states in this country is driven by monetary considerations for the trustees of those colleges. Instead of training their students to become caring physicians, such colleges encourage them to convert their professions into money making enterprises by levying exorbitant capitation fees at the time of admission which they are covertly encouraged to recover from their patients in the course of their future careers as doctors. When regulatory bodies fail to correct these discrepancies, they have no right to continue as such. The Supreme Court’s directive is the appropriate answer to these fundamental issues.<br /><br />In 1982, the Government of India issued a statement advocating “a thorough overhaul of the existing approaches to the training and education of medical and health personnel” in the country. Towards this end, it stressed the formulation of a health and medical education policy. That was 27 years ago. We are still following an archaic system of medical education where the emphasis is more on acute care of diseases rather than preparing future doctors for the challenges of preventive medicine. <br /><br />The clinical practice that they receive is in the controlled environment of tertiary care hospitals. Whereas, in a country like India, doctors need to be trained in various settings that qualify them to work in community hospitals, nursing homes and hospices. Medical colleges must prepare students to understand and treat long term chronic disorders that bring a large section of patients to hospitals. Above all, medical colleges must foster proper professional values in our future physicians. When the colleges themselves lack these values, can they hope to inculcate them in their wards?</p>
