Medical training: New structure for house job introduced

Pakistan Medical Association leader welcomes PMDC initiatives.

LAHORE:

The Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) has introduced a revised structure for house jobs.

The one-year house job with six modules will now be called the Foundation Year.

According to PMDC guidelines, a house job will have two major groups. House officers will be required to complete two groups of three modules each. Each group will be divided into a set of three, two and one months of training in various departments.

The three modules in the first half of the year will be based on medicine and allied sciences, while the second half will have modules on surgery and allied sciences.

The earlier structure had lacked mandatory modules.

In the first three-month module, the house officers will work in medicine including emergencies and out patients’ facilities. In the two-month module the house officers will work in paediatrics department. In the one-month module they will work in psychiatry departments.

In the second half of the year beginning with the fourth module, house officers will work in surgery and will be rotated in emergencies. This will last for three months, followed by two months in gynaecology and obstetrics and one month in radiology.

By the end of the year, house officers will be assessed by their university. A basic life support course, compulsory for all house officers, can be taken any time through the year.

The institution providing house job will ensure the candidate has valid provisional registration. Once the house training slot is awarded to the candidate, the institution will inform the PMDC.

The PMDC will maintain the training record for each house officer. The university with which the house officer is registered will do the same.

House officers will not be allowed to work more than three months at an institution having less than three specialties or lacking surgery, medicine and gynae and OS Unit.

If candidates wish to continue working in a specific specialty after house jobs, they can do so after attaining full registration with the PMDC.

Overseas house hob will be recognised by the PMDC if done in a teaching hospital affiliated with an accredited medical or dental school recognised for house job by the Medical Regulatory Authority of that country.

Foreign medical or dental graduates will be required to pass the National Examination Board. They will then be registered provisionally for house jobs after notification from the federal government and will be required to complete one-year mandatory house job from the date the registration was issued.

Dr Ahmad Nadeem Akbar, the PMDC registrar, said that structured house job would better prepare the young doctors for a professional career.

He said that all teaching hospitals will provide paid house jobs to all their graduates. The stipend, he said, will be equal at private and public institutions.

House job has now been made compulsory for registration with the PMDC. House job prior to the provisional registration will not be recognised, he added.

Dr Salman Kazmi, the Pakistan Medical Association joint secretary, believes the revised structure for house jobs is an improvement. “Now young doctors will have a diverse experience.”

Private medical institutions too will have to pay their house officers, he said, which they have been doing.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 18th, 2011.