National Medical Commission tasked to end inspector raj

Aditi Tandon
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, September 25

The country’s new medical education regulator, the National Medical Commission (NMC), came into force today with the mandate to improve the quality of the medical graduate and end inspector raj in the running of medical colleges.

The Medical Assessment Board will grant permissions for new colleges and lay down norms for them to follow.

“Once colleges have been permitted to operate and they conform to the norms, there would be no need for annual renewals,” said a government source. The board will also develop national rankings for medical colleges to help students choose better.

As the NMC Act provisions roll from today, modalities of the new National Exit Test will also be developed. The exit test will be the final-year MBBS exam, which, once ready, will serve as a licensiate exam for MBBS pass-outs and entrance test for PGs and foreign medical graduates.

The exit test will also be used for PG entrance to the institutes of national importance like AIIMS, PGI, Chandigarh, and JIPMER, Puducherry.

Results of the exit test will determine the college rankings with the focus shifting to output of medical education rather than input (land, infrastructure, etc) as was the norm under the now abolished Medical Council of India.

The NMC is now set to draft the uniform national pattern for MBBS final-year exams to ensure the same level of skills in MBBS graduates all over India.

“At present, different medical colleges have different MBBS exam patters which means we are never sure of the quality of the medical graduate passing out of MBBS. The NMC proposal is to ensure a uniform national pattern for final-year MBBS exam so that all medical graduates who get the licence to practise conform to uniform national standards and quality,” a Health Ministry source said.

The Centre today said the NMC constitution paved the way for “historic reform”.

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