Parliamentary panel on medical education

The convenor of the committee and Congress MP from Kerala, V M Sudheeran, told Express Newsline that the committee has already visited medical colleges in Hyderabad, Chennai and Pondicherry and also the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi.

As part of their exercise they have prepared a questionnaire which have been dispatched to all the states, and has received about 1000 suggestions so far, he added. Apart from speaking to officials and experts, the committee also holds open forums where general public can participate, he disclosed.

After they have covered all the states, the committee will submit its report to the main committee which in turn will present it to the Parliament for further action, Sudheeran said. And after a period of time, the committee will again be asked to comment on whether appropriate action was taken on their recommendations, he said.

Discussions at GMC today focussed on several issues including medical curriculum, research activities, brain drain, changing the education pattern and stress management in medical education.

In her presentation to the panel, Dr Alka Deshpande, professor and head of medicine department, stressed on the importance of uniformity in the examination system and internal assessment for medical students. Evaluation of students on the basis of their performance in an examination of three-and-a-half-hours does not do justice to them, she noted and suggested setting up of a computerised question bank.

J N Phadtare, honorary professor of chest medicine, GTC, commented on honorary teachers. 8220;They are supposed to function for four hours a day and also attend to emergencies as and when required. But they are paid an honorarium of only Rs 1500 though they provide quality medical education and treatment,8221; he said. The system of honoraries and full-timers are supposed to be complementary to each other, and they should work together since it is in the benefit of the common man. At the same time, there are black sheep in both cadres and the defaulters should be taken to task, he further said.

Another faculty member felt that human values are getting steadily eroded in the process of medical education, and therefore there should be value based education. There is little compassion felt by doctors towards their patients, and this has resulted in the huge number of complaints against the doctors under the Consumer Protection Act, he said.

In his submission, Dr R G Bhusale, vice dean and head of forensic department, urged for a moratorium on establishing new medical colleges in medical colleges-dense8217; states like Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. Also, the medical course is very lengthy and a student is almost 35-40 years of age by the time he completes his training in superspeciality, he said. Therefore, modifications should be made so that the medical graduate comes out at an early age and can make a valuable contribution to the society, he added.