Cavities in the PMDC

In the collective wisdom of parliament, a medical university not only does not need the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council’s (PMDC) oversight, but it can also double as its own regulator and serve as the watchdog for some medical colleges. The Senate Defence Committee’s approval on September 28 of a bill already passed by the National Assembly for the establishment of National University of Medical Sciences (NUMS) leaves one with no other logical explanation. And in view of the total disarray that the PMDC has been suffering from since the advent of the private sector in the field of medical education, one finds it almost impossible to question the logic of the collective wisdom. Having become a handmaiden of market-driven private tycoons, the Council seems to have given up its mission of setting minimum standards of medical education, ensuring its adherence and strictly enforcing the universal code of medical ethics. Naturally, no entity worth its name would like to soil its reputation by having one of its institutions regulated by such a Council.

But there is a flip side to self-regulation, especially when one is dealing with the health of human beings. And self-regulatory bodies comprising even the best of the best have found it impossible, in due course of time, to escape being adulterated by the element of conflict of interest. As long as medical education had remained in the public sector, the PMDC had served fairly effectively. It is a member of the International Association of Medical Regulatory Authorities. It is supposed to maintain quality standards equivalent to those demanded by National Committee on Foreign Medical Education and Accreditation, US. Its system of accreditation had also been approved by the General Medical Council, UK. So, what is needed urgently is to put the PMDC back on track and not let it go further down the drain by treating it as a pariah. Meanwhile, as Senator Farhatullah Babar of the PPP suggested, NUMS while awaiting the reforms to be put into place, should seek an NOC from the PMDC if it wants to self-regulate.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 1^st, 2015.

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