Body to promote medical education on anvil

Updated on: Saturday, July 03, 2010

Padma Vibhushan awardee and reputed cardiac surgeon M S Valiathan today said discussions were on in the government for setting up of a national body that would preside over the promotive and regulatory aspects of medical education.

''The proposed body will be called National Commission on Medical Education (NCME) and its powers will be similar to those of the National Commission on Higher Education as proposed in a Bill being considered by the Parliament,'' Prof Valiathan said.
He was addressing the gathering at the 15th Prof G Ram Reddy Memorial Lecture on the topic ''Medical Education in the melting Pot'' at Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU).

Prof Valiathan said the NCME will be an autonomous body set up by Act of Parliament with the twin objectives of promoting and regulating medical education at all levels.

''It will be headed by an eminent medical educationist whose contributions as an academician, investigator, and administrator enjoy national recognition and will have eight-ten active members who represent biological sciences, pre/para/ and clinical sciences of medicine, public health, sociology and technology,'' he said.

Talking about the best possible nominations for the same, he placed a suggestion that the Government should ask for panels of experts in these disciplines from the National Academies of Science, Medicine, Engineering and ICSSR, who should be taken into confidence on the importance of NCME, its role in shaping medical education, and in due course, standards of healthcare and quality of medical research in India.

''The members will have a term of five years and its performance will be evaluated by an Independent Committee appointed by the Parliament every ten years,'' he added.

The NCME will also be accomplished through two committees -- Committee for promotion of Medical Education and Committee for regulation of Medical Education, Prof Valiathan said.

Prof Valiathan enumerated the reasons for the neglect of medical education in the country and said, ''MCI, which was as much a promotive as a regulatory body, failed to bring about any important innovation in medical education which was beset with a host of problems in India.'' The lecture was presided over by Indira Gandhi National Open University Vice-Chancellor V N Rajasekharan Pillai.

IGNOU's Prof G Ram Reddy Memorial Lecture series was instituted in 1996 in the memory of Prof G Ram Reddy, IGNOU's founder Vice-Chancellor.

Body to promote medical education on anvil

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