THE New Nation on Monday reported that the Health Ministry has suspended academic activities of three private medical colleges for violating rules and regulations and also for not maintaining high standard of professional education. Marginalizing recruitment criteria and quality of physical infrastructures, the government earlier awarded medical college licenses to party men for big profits. Most private medical colleges have dearth of quality teachers, required physical infrastructure medical equipment, attached hospital and administrative staffs, and producing sub-standard medical graduates. However, it is also true that in the face of inadequate healthcare facilities in the country, private medical colleges are an obvious necessity as we need more physicians and only public medical colleges are not enough to produce the necessary number of medical graduates. But compromising the standard in medical education will only deteriorate the quality of healthcare.
Students of the shut down medical colleges — Northern Medical College in Rangpur, City Medical College at Gazipur and Nightingale Medical College at Ashulia, Dhaka — will however, be transferred to other private medical colleges under relevant universities in the concerned areas, said the Ministry officials. It is a good step indeed. The decision was taken at a meeting on private medical college policy forum held at the Health Ministry recently. It also decided to suspend admission procedures for the 2016-17 academic calendar of Southern Medical College in Chittagong and reduce the number of seats of BGC Trust Medical College in Chittagong. These medical colleges were warned several times for their low-quality education, inadequate faculties and facilities but they did not pay heed to the warnings. It is welcome that the government took cognizance of the issue.
In our view to stop bad doctors from entering the healthcare system, the government should introduce a qualifying exam for all medical graduates. Medical graduates who perform poorly in the pre-qualifying test should be barred from entering the profession. In the developed countries, no one is allowed to practice immediately after medical graduation or MBBS. They have to go through post-graduate degree and an extensive training period before taking up the responsibility of treating patients. National Medical Council regulate physicians and maintain the standard of profession. They place people’s health need and safety first and above all. So, we too should put in place a comprehensive training process for medical graduates.
Medical education is not education of fine arts, it is related to citizens’ life risk. For that, the government should strictly control the standard of medical education in public and private colleges and the suspension of the functioning of the colleges seems to be a proper step in the right direction.
Students of the shut down medical colleges — Northern Medical College in Rangpur, City Medical College at Gazipur and Nightingale Medical College at Ashulia, Dhaka — will however, be transferred to other private medical colleges under relevant universities in the concerned areas, said the Ministry officials. It is a good step indeed. The decision was taken at a meeting on private medical college policy forum held at the Health Ministry recently. It also decided to suspend admission procedures for the 2016-17 academic calendar of Southern Medical College in Chittagong and reduce the number of seats of BGC Trust Medical College in Chittagong. These medical colleges were warned several times for their low-quality education, inadequate faculties and facilities but they did not pay heed to the warnings. It is welcome that the government took cognizance of the issue.
In our view to stop bad doctors from entering the healthcare system, the government should introduce a qualifying exam for all medical graduates. Medical graduates who perform poorly in the pre-qualifying test should be barred from entering the profession. In the developed countries, no one is allowed to practice immediately after medical graduation or MBBS. They have to go through post-graduate degree and an extensive training period before taking up the responsibility of treating patients. National Medical Council regulate physicians and maintain the standard of profession. They place people’s health need and safety first and above all. So, we too should put in place a comprehensive training process for medical graduates.
Medical education is not education of fine arts, it is related to citizens’ life risk. For that, the government should strictly control the standard of medical education in public and private colleges and the suspension of the functioning of the colleges seems to be a proper step in the right direction.
