DEFAMING MCI TO MALIGN DR KETAN DESAI; VESTED INTERESTS CALLING THE SHOTS

It is ironic that while the Medical Council of India is working on the modalities to have a curriculum for medical education that caters to the growing needs of the nation, a section of media instigated by certain vested interests are targeting it for reasons more than one. It seems that MCI has become the latest media obsession and in the name of investigative journalism, mud slinging has become the norm. For instance, if we see some of the media reports on the MCI, it is found that the apex body of medical education is being criticized even for the follies of the respective state medical councils.

One wonders whether this is borne out of ignorance or whether certain vested interests are working overnight behind it. Had this blogger not been writing on the medical education for quite sometime now, it would have been difficult to get an answer to this. But some of the recent anonymous mails clearly suggest that there is a deep rooted conspiracy to malign the MCI. Some further investigation brings to the light that the character assassination is targeted more against the MCI President Dr Ketan Desai who has time and again refused to toe their line and entertain such vested interests into the realm of medical education.

Dr Ketan Desai has been clearly advocating the concern of the Medical Council of India that the curriculum for the various modern medicine courses needed to be updated in a periodic manner, so as to make them commensurate with immediate and long term requirements. In order to give an academic direction and fillip, ‘Academic Cell’ has been constituted in the MCI, which is primarily vested with the responsibility of catering to the academic requirements of medical education in the country.

Curriculum update is the one of the premier tasks, which is being dispensed, for which a ‘standing mechanism’ in the forms of 72 Boards of specialties with expert members included thereat has been constituted. This Board of specialties taking stock of the various developments updates the curriculum in the concerned specialties for the consideration of the authorities of Medical Council of India. The council has also defined the ‘unit of update’ which in case of the postgraduate studies is three years and for the undergraduate 5 years, which incidentally is the duration of the said courses.

It is ensured that the updated curriculum is affected in a prospective manner. Likewise, a continuous effort is made by the academic cell to evolve desired innovations in the domain of teaching, learning and evaluation process and also evolving quality measures to be inculcated in to the system, so as to make the model of medical education ‘competitive and sustainable’. The context worked out by the council is in the paradigm that the ‘national objectives’ for the health care delivery system are required to be set in and a commensurate national curriculum is to be evolved for the fulfillment of the said objectives. It is also envisaged that the curriculum is not only expected to be catering to the national needs but as India is required to generate trained manpower even for the global requirements, hence the global needs are also incorporated in the ambit.

Does anybody still have any questions on the functioning of the MCI or the integrity of Dr Ketan Desai? No wonder, in India many luminaries of the medical fraternity who could otherwise have served this nation got frustrated by this system and became self centered. Dr Desai has given a paradigm shift to the apex body of medical education and for this; he deserves the appreciation of one and all.

ENDS….