Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 150
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 151
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Warning (512): Unable to emit headers. Headers sent in file=/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php line=853 [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 48]
Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 148]
Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 181]
LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Plan to track ghost faculty in medical colleges -GS Mudur

Plan to track ghost faculty in medical colleges -GS Mudur

Share this article Share this article
published Published on Aug 20, 2016   modified Modified on Aug 20, 2016
-The Telegraph

New Delhi: India's regulatory body for medical education, beleaguered by allegations of corruption and performance failures, today announced plans to create a digital register of doctors across the country and track ghost, or fake, faculty in medical colleges.

The Medical Council of India (MCI) will update its national register of medical practitioners within six months and use a computer network to monitor in real time the daily attendance patterns of faculty members in medical colleges, senior MCI officials said.

The digitisation announcements come at a time when the Narendra Modi government has initiated a process to examine an alternative architecture to regulate medical education and medical practice after a parliamentary panel earlier this year charged the MCI with corruption and failure to perform its tasks. A government-appointed panel led by Niti Aayog chairperson Arvind Panagariya earlier this month released for public responses a draft bill to create a National Medical Commission in place of the MCI.

The updated digital register of medical practitioners will make it possible for members of the public to check electronically the status of registered doctors, including whether any proceedings under the MCI's rulebook of ethics are pending against them, MCI president Jayashree Mehta said.

"We will know how many doctors there are in India and where and how they are practising, everything will be totally transparent," Mehta said. Doctors will be asked to provide their latest addresses among other details to state medical councils that will be expected to submit them to the MCI.

The biometric-based network will allow the MCI to check on faculty members attending medical colleges, a move officials say is intended to expose fake faculty that some medical colleges are suspected to maintain in their efforts to seek MCI's approval to run the college. Inspections of some medical colleges by the MCI - which lays down standards of teaching and infrastructure - have at times revealed colleges that invite neighbouring doctors to showcase them as faculty.

"Sitting here, we can monitor their (faculty) presence in college," Mehta said. The MCI will issue an electronic card to all faculty and ask medical colleges to provide attendance details, salaries and the tasks assigned to them to ensure that colleges are complying with regulatory requirements.

Doctors campaigning for reforms in the regulation of medicine said the moves towards an updated digital register and biometric tracking of faculty are "welcome," but pointed out that both initiatives could have been taken years ago.

"They really didn't need a computer network to track faculty attendance, this could have been done years ago through proper investigation of medical college records such as attendance, salary and income tax records," said B. Srinivas Kakkilaya, a physician in Mangalore who is among doctors campaigning for reforms.

Some doctors suspect the MCI's moves are aimed at countering allegations of poor performance.

"What they've announced are good measures, but I don't think it is a good idea to take major policy decisions when the MCI's very existence is under threat," said Samiran Nundy, a senior gastrointestinal surgeon in New Delhi and a member of a coalition of doctors campaigning for regulatory reforms.

However, a member of the MCI's executive council said allegations about wrongdoing by the MCI are based on perceptions linked to an earlier version of the council, not the present group of members.

C.V. Bhirmanandam, a senior cardiologist and vice-president of the MCI, cited various restrictions imposed by the MCI on nearly 150 medical colleges over the past three years as evidence of an effective and incorruptible body. "Would a corrupt body impose restrictions on so many private medical colleges? And who brought the common entrance exam for medical seats? We want someone to point out one single case of corruption over the past three years," he told The Telegraph.

"Whether MCI exists or not, until the last day, we will do what we can to improve things," Bhirmanandam said.

The Telegraph, 20 August, 2016, http://www.telegraphindia.com/1160820/jsp/nation/story_103483.jsp#.V7hYE6I1t_k


Related Articles

 

Write Comments

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

Video Archives

Archives

share on Facebook
Twitter
RSS
Feedback
Read Later

Contact Form

Please enter security code
      Close