HRD to amend Act,IITs to teach medicine

Two months after the Health Ministry snubbed the IITs plan to offer courses in medicine,the Union HRD Ministry is all set to amend the IIT Act to allow IITs to start medical schools. IIT-Kharagpur,IIT-Madras and the newly set up IIT-Hyderabad are all seriously mulling offering courses in medicine. IIT-Kharagpur had,in fact,signed an MoU with University of California,San Diego,last year to help it set up a medical college.

Appreciating the fact that the modern trends in medical education and research in technology and medicine in all the developed and most of the developing countries are seen hand in hand,the government proposes to incorporate medicine in the IIT Act. The programme will bring the two diverse,yet important disciplines of medicine and engineering together, D Purandeshwari,MoS for HRD,said in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday.

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Health Ministry had decided in February that IITs should stay off the MBBS course and instead look at PhD involving collaboration between engineering and medicine sciences courses such as health information technology,biomedical engineering and e-health.