It looks like Indian Govt. is always after MBBS graduates, be it compulsory rural postings, rural service bond post PG, or the recent announcement of exit exam for MBBS graduates, its always the MBBS grads who have to suffer.
The govt says that exit exam is necessary to control the quality of medicos passing out of various institutes. But i dont think, this will help even a little bit to the society and the medicos. One one hand officials (MCI) are concerned over quality of MBBS grads, and on other many states are allowing Ayush grads to practice modern medicine. If we think logically, a medical grad after studying 5.5 yrs will be better than a Ayush trained doctor in Allopathy.
Lets follow this issue.......
“Indian Systems of Medicine practitioners can also practice modern medicine” The Hindu. - This is the article published in Tamil Nadu, where TN govt has allowed Indian Medicine doctors, to practice Allopathy side by side.
In another piece of NEWS where Maharastra govt. also allowed practice of Allopathy by Ayush doctors to curb shortage of doctors, "The State Assembly and Legislative Council's nod on Friday to the Bill that allows homeopaths to practice allopathy after a one-year bridge course in pharmacology, has drawn sharp objections from the medical fraternity. While the Indian Medical Association (IMA) said it would move court over the State government move, Dr Bahubali Shah, administrator, Maharashtra Council of Homeopathy, termed it a positive development. "We have 62,000 homeopaths registered with the council, of which only 10,000 practice pure or classical homeopathy. The remaining doctors are into mixed practice anyway. This decision will be extremely helpful to patients, especially in areas where there is acute shortage of doctors," said Shah.
If the officials are so concerned about quality of doctors in India, why there is no check on Indian Medical System doctors. Dr. Shah himself has accepted that more than 5/6th of the Ayush doctors are in mixed practice or to say crosspathy. Govt. should keep a check on such practice too.
Second issue in India is Quackery which needs serious attention, where nursing professionals and even uneducated people are treating patients openly as doctors. Govt. is not taking proper effort to put an end to such quack clinics and stop such practice, which is not only harmful for the community but also to whole of Medical Community of India.
Such quacks are prone to negligence often, the negligent practice of such quacks are contributing a major role in defamation of Medical Practitioners.
If we look at the said exit exam, there are flaws there too. A MCQ based exam is a good practice to prepare a merit list, but such exams does not efficiently test the knowledge of a candidate. Besides this, Medicine is 60% practical learning in the wards, and merely performing in a MCQ tests wont be sufficient.
As per official data, India is already facing scarcity of qualified doctors to serve the population. If govt. will impose such restrictions on already very long medical education, more and more students will loose interest in medical career and the condition will become worse. Due to such harassment, more and more doctors are adopting alternate careers and many are leaving the country too.
It is time, Govt should come up with positive amendments to improve overall healthcare system and to retain best breed of doctors in India.
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