Curriculum change: ‘Ethics should be included in medical study’

Two-day conference for medical education reforms comes to an end.

KARACHI:
Doctors should include ethics in the new curriculum of undergraduate medical education, Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS) vice-chancellor Prof Dr Masood Hameed Khan said on Sunday.

Addressing the last day of the two-day conference on “Building Bridges for Medical Education Reforms”, organised by the DUHS at the Ojha campus, he suggested that a task force comprising medical experts should be formed to ensure that education in the country’s medical colleges is at par with international standards. It should also ensure that research should continue for the cure of diseases and the country’s needs in the medical sphere, Dr Hameed added.

Doctors and health experts came together at the conference, which was attended by more than 60 principals and deans of medical institutions across the country, in an attempt to revise and improve the curriculum of undergraduate medical education for the next academic year.

Dr Hameed appealed to doctors to contribute to medical education with their expertise and professional achievements to help the country’s ailing health sector. He also called for a medical board of experts to monitor the changes taking place in medicine across the globe and devise strategies to incorporate them in local medicine.

The vice-chancellor pressed for centralised medical education to be in place across all government- and private-owned medical colleges including one curriculum and concurrent admissions.

He said that all admissions to medical colleges must be based on merit and skills training should be mandatory in the curriculum. The Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) will soon move for licence examinations to be held so that only those who pass the exam can be issued licences to practise medicine.

Meanwhile, DUHS professor Salahuddin said that medicine is going through rapid changes globally, which is why Pakistan needs to implement the changes to keep up with the world. Participants of the conference also passed a resolution to include medical research as a compulsory course in the new curriculum.


At the end of the conference, Dr Hameed said that the recommendations made by the participants on the changes of the curriculum will be sent to PMDC and implemented accordingly.

On the web

The PMDC will upload a list of doctors registered with the council on their website, announced PMDC president Professor Syed Sibitul Hasnain.

Talking to the Daily Express, he said for the first time, the names and details of all the students enrolled in the MBBS and BDS programmes of all government- and private-owned medical institutes will also be uploaded on the PMDC website. “This will identify and help tabulate who graduated from which university,” he explained. All the education records, from the intermediate results to all medical-college transcripts, will also be available on the website, he added.

Students will also be issued identification cards by their medical universities and the names of the faculty members will also be listed on the website.

The council will also prepare an exam to register students who have completed their MBBS from foreign universities.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 17th,  2011.
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