Behavioural sciences: KEMU graduates left with ethics dilemma
Though it’s tested in medical licensing exams all over the world and taught at all other medical schools in the province, King Edward Medical University (KEMU) has not included behavioural sciences as a subject in its syllabus.
The subject is meant to inform medical students of their professional and ethical responsibilities and about how to deal with patients and colleagues, among other things. And questions on these matters make up a significant portion of medical licensing tests abroad, unfortunately for some KEMU graduates.
A KEMU graduate who sat the US Medical Licensing Exams (USMLE) said he failed because he had been confronted by unfamiliar questions about ethics. The doctor is now back in Pakistan.
“In developed countries, patients have defined rights and doctors are supposed to know them. This is what you learn in behavioural sciences,” said University of Health Sciences (UHS) Media and Publications Director Muhammad Atif.
The UHS, which sets the syllabus and conducts exams for the 19 public and 27 private medical and dental colleges in the Punjab, included behavioural sciences in the MBBS curriculum in 2007.
“Students learn about what sort of relationships they should have with patients, pharmaceutical companies and attendants. It teaches students how to break bad news to a patient and his family,” Atif said.
He said that students also learnt in behavioural sciences to be sensitive to their patients’ social situations. “If your patient is a labourer and you prescribe him a medicine which costs Rs500 per tablet, maybe you are not doing him a service,” he said.
He said that the UHS board of governors, board of studies and syndicate had all approved the addition to the curriculum.
“A pharmaceutical company offers to take you on a trip to Switzerland if you prescribe their medicine for one month. How should a doctor respond? There is a standard practice doctors are supposed to follow in these scenarios which is taught in behavioural sciences,” said a senior professor at KEMU.
The professor said that ethical questions made up a significant portion of licensing exams like the USMLE and their equivalent in the UK, Australia and Canada, so behavioural sciences was particularly important subject for students who were planning to go abroad to work.
Allama Iqbal Medical College Principal Professor Mahmood Shaukat said that the subject should be taught at all medical schools. “If a doctor doesn’t know what his ethical and professional duties are, how can he perform them? The subject should be taught at KEMU,” he said.
See no evil
KEMU Examinations Controller Professor Imtiaz Bajwa indicated that the university did not plan to start teaching the subject any time soon. “Professor Malik Hussain Mubasher introduced this course and made it a part of the syllabus when he was UHS vice chancellor. He did it because he was a psychiatrist. This subject hasn’t got anything to do directly with medical education,” he said.
“We are a prestigious institution with a history of 150 years and we have a syllabus that produces the best doctors in the country,” he said. He added that the KEMU Academic Council had once considered introducing the subject to the curriculum, but had not made a decision on the matter.
An official of the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) said though behavioural sciences was included in the curriculum described by the council, its inclusion was not binding.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 2nd, 2012.
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I am a graduate of KEMU.We are still following the old system of examination.. we are still given two Long Essay Questions in our exams.The MCQs are mostly one liners which usually test your cramming ability rather than your concepts. Still we have to give viva to our Professors. Passing the viva depends whether you fit the description of perfect doctor in their eyes. If you have cracked a joke in their class and got caught, then you are in deep trouble..The curriculum is out dated. We read BD for anatomy and cram every single line in it. For pharma, Cheema is still the most favorite book....of the professors. We still make PRACTICAL COPIES like school children. The problem is that our teachers need to change their attitude towards the students. They need to act like TEACHERS and Doctors. Their own behavior towards their students is questionable. Many of them need a psych evaluation even the "Psych professor" and many of them need to respect their students instead of insulting them every chance they get. And this Crap does not only happen in KEMU. It happens in all the public institutes. And UHS and PMDC is flawed too. Look at USMLE exam/AMC exam and you will come to know how well they manage everything. Everything is computer based. PMDC is a useless piece of **!!