MCI aims to bring back 5000 NRI doctors in 5 years

Amendments in the Medical Council of India (MCI) regulations will open the floodgates for hundreds of non-resident Indian (NRI) doctors to come back to their roots. MCI has eased the cross-over rules and has set a target of bringing back 5,000 Indian doctors, including teachers, settled in US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

MCI has removed the main bottleneck by recognising the postgraduation and other degrees of these specific countries where health facilities are supposedly best in the world and the education was done in English medium. They have the choice of coming back to teach in a private or government college as well as work in a private or government hospital. Also, they can set up their own medical colleges and hospitals. Indian doctors in these countries are the richest segment even among NRIs.

Apart from accepting foreign degrees, the MCI has made special provision so that foreign experience is also counted. For example, if there is a professor of medicine in a US university, with the required number of years of experience to become one in India, he can be hired as a professor by any medical college in India. This will bring about a huge change not only in the cities but also in the countryside, if the doctors returning home really go deeper into their roots. Besides, MCI also sees the possibility of groups of NRI doctors coming back and pooling in their resources to build hospitals and medical colleges.

Screening test mandatory for foreign medical graduates

Medical graduates with foreign degrees will not be able to practise in India till they have cleared a screening test conducted by the Medical Council of India, the Supreme Court has ruled.

The screening test will also be mandatory for those students who have got MBBS degrees from a country with which India has a reciprocity agreement. At present, certain medical qualifications of UK, Australia, Canada, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, South Africa, Ireland, Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh are covered under the reciprocity clause. From now, if an Indian student gets a medical degree from a foreign country covered under the reciprocity clause and wants to practise in India, he can do so only after clearing the MCI’s screening test.

The worst affected would be Indian students who had made a beeline for medical degrees from colleges in Nepal after the MCI had refused to recognise medical degrees from institutes in erstwhile USSR countries, which had liberal admission criteria.

Students went in droves to get admission in medical colleges in Nepal, with which India has a reciprocity clause, and had approached the SC after MCI said they were required to appear in the screening test.

Dismissing their plea against the screening test, a Bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justices P Sathasivam and J M Panchal said:

Appellants have to appear in the screening test conducted by the National Board of Examination in terms of the Screening Test Regulations made by the MCI. It was noticed that such students also included those who did not fulfil the minimum eligibility requirements for admission to medical courses in India. Serious aberrations were noticed in the standards of medical education in some foreign countries, which were not on par with standards of medical education available in India,” the SC said justifying its ruling.

It was therefore felt necessary by Parliament to make a provision to enable MCI to conduct a screening test to satisfy the regulatory body about the adequacy of knowledge and skills acquired by citizens of India, who obtained medical qualifications from universities or medical institutions outside India.

More weightage in postgraduate entrance exams to doctors completing rural service

An additional weightage of 10 per cent for each year of rural service will be given to doctors applying for post-graduate entrance examinations from the next academic year.

Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said this weightage will be subject to a maximum of 30 per cent for three years, though a doctor could serve in rural areas for as many years as he chose to after completing the internship .

Similarly, 50 per cent of seats in post-graduate diploma courses have also been reserved for medical officers in government service who have served for at least three years in inaccessible areas.

“This will be a major incentive for doctors and para-medical staff to serve in the rural areas,” Mr. Azad said.

In order to facilitate the increase in the number of medical specialists, the Government has also decided to increase the enrolment of post-graduate students. The existing 1:1 ratio will be enhanced in broad specialities for professor and in super specialities to 1:2.

The rise in the number of post-graduate doctors will automatically increase the number of teachers due to the multiplier effect. Thus, without substantive additional resource and infrastructure requirement, the number of post-graduate specialists would dramatically increase annually by almost 5,000 from the existing 13,000.

While this move will certainly ensure influx of doctors in rural areas, I am worried about the 30% marks. Seems to be a real dangling carrot which can cause havoc to merit lists. Also I hate to see the sight of doctors spending their rural postings solving MCQs instead of learning new things and providing necessary service. Or am I being far too pessimistic?

PMO rejects proposal to scrap Medical Council of India

The Prime Minister’s Office has turned down a health ministry proposal to dissolve various regulatory bodies for medical and related institutions, and replace them with a new consolidated one. The PMO has declined to act, suggesting wider consultations before taking a final decision on bodies like the Medical Council of India and similar ones for dental and nursing colleges.

The health ministry had cited complaints of corruption in the bodies and sent its recommendations to the PMO for approval for a Cabinet note paving the way for an amendment to the Act under which the MCI was created. The ministry called for a consolidated regulator for all related disciplines. The PMO, however, seems to be of the view that there is a need for more consultations to arrive at a decision about the fate of MCI.

The PMO rejected the proposal, saying there was no surety that the new body replacing MCI would not develop shortcomings as of the present regulators, an official said. It has asked the ministry to consult more experts on the issue and devise a plan to cleanse the existing system rather than replacing it, sources in the ministry said.

When contacted, the health ministry reiterated its position about “complaints of rampant corruption” about the functioning of the MCI and DCI, and the need for a review. “There is an urgent need for a thorough review of complaints about the MCI,” minister of state for health Dinesh Trivedi said on Sunday. He questioned the utility of such bodies by pointing out that in the era of technology, such “inspection raj” was an oddity. “An institution needs to meet the required criteria and quality has to be constantly monitored,” he told TOI.

Rs 12.6 crore aid to MUHS from Planning Commission

The Pune regional centre of the Maharashtra University of Health Sciences (MUHS) has been allotted Rs 3 crore of the total Rs 12.6 crore financial aide extended by the Planning Commission of India to the Nashik-based state health university for strengthening infrastructure and training facilities.

Maharashtra has 41 medical colleges and has 4,460 students graduating each year the highest in country. The number of colleges rose from 12 in 1980 to 41 by the end of 2008. A shortage of teachers has reflected on the number of quality doctors passing out of colleges. There is a need for quality training of teachers as well as continuing medical education and continuing professional development (CME/CPD) for medical teachers.

This is the first ever instance of the MUHS receiving an aide of such major proportion from a central agency. The funds are to be routed through the state department for medical education, which issued a government resolution (GR) on August 29 declaring the distribution of the aide to MUHS, Nashik headquarters and Pune regional centre.

Speaking to TOI , MUHS vice-chancellor Mrudula Phadke said,

The funds allotted to the Pune regional centre will be utilised for establishing a state-of-the-art training institution for medical professionals engaged in teaching health science courses.

The idea is to provide medical teachers’ training at four different levels viz. junior, intermediaries, middle and senior-level doctors in different aspects. For instance, few doctors knew about an infectious disease like swine flu until a few months back. We want to ensure that our doctors get an update on outbreak of diseases, to be prepared for tackling such health eventualities.”

The MUHS teachers training institute, which is the only facility of its kind in the state, was established on March 27, 2007, at the Aundh Chest Hospital building. However, the health varsity had sought funds for strengthening and creating a state-of-the-art training facility for medical teachers.

Dr Phadke said

The junior-level training had focus on factors like communication with patients, medical ethics and good medical practices, among others; the intermediary and middle-level training would be focussed on continuing medical education and continuing professional development (CME/CPD) and skill enhancement. The CME/CPD and skill enhancement training is where the update on emerging diseases is to be covered.

The senior-level training would mostly involve deans and professors from various government medical colleges and hospitals and would focus on factors such as leadership, management and administration.

The Nashik unit will get Rs 5 crore for proposed new buildings and basic infrastructure while Rs 1 crore each will go setting up video-conferencing; medical library; and consortium of journals facility and Rs 1.6 crore for procurement of new equipment.

But already a row seems to be brewing over the allocation of funds. Wait and watch what happens next.