Quality of education in government medical colleges
Friday, 25 September 2009
IS the education imparted by the government medical colleges capable of equipping medical students to become good doctors? Has the recent flow of doctors in hordes from government medical colleges to private medical colleges affected the quality of education? And will these colleges continue to maintain their teaching and research standards in the future also? Experts in the medical field were doubtful if this profession could attract new teaching talent and maintain the same standards set by their proficient predecessors.
The government, in effect, is asking the doctors to devote more time to the patients and academics. The vacancies for teachers in medical colleges must be filled, so that doctors could focus on the teaching side.
Some of the MBBS students say that they were unaware of the real impact of the extension of working hours of faculty members. It is not yet known clearly whether the out-patient timings would be extended or if the afternoon hours be devoted to teaching.
If one were to consider problems in government medical colleges, apart from the complaints of inadequate pay structure, staff shortage certainly comes into picture.
The first priority should be to fill up the vacancies. The service of retired doctors should be extended for a few years, so that their expertise could be utilised. Now the patient-doctor ratio is not maintained. The number of teachers does not increase with the increase in number of students. Also, doctors are less in number in some colleges where patients are more.
Conducting bedside clinics is not possible in crowded government medical college hospitals as students do not have enough space to stand. There would be many patients lying on the floor in these hospitals.
Now all patients flock to medical colleges, but if the facilities in other government hospitals are increased, it will lessen the flow to the medical colleges.
A strict referral system will ensure that only those patients referred by the family doctor would be entertained by the specialists. Another suggestion was to introduce health economics both at post- and under-graduate levels so that the students understand the priorities and thereby avoid the wasting of resources.
Avik Sengupta
McGill University, Canada,
e-mail: avik.sengupta@mail.mcgill.ca
The government, in effect, is asking the doctors to devote more time to the patients and academics. The vacancies for teachers in medical colleges must be filled, so that doctors could focus on the teaching side.
Some of the MBBS students say that they were unaware of the real impact of the extension of working hours of faculty members. It is not yet known clearly whether the out-patient timings would be extended or if the afternoon hours be devoted to teaching.
If one were to consider problems in government medical colleges, apart from the complaints of inadequate pay structure, staff shortage certainly comes into picture.
The first priority should be to fill up the vacancies. The service of retired doctors should be extended for a few years, so that their expertise could be utilised. Now the patient-doctor ratio is not maintained. The number of teachers does not increase with the increase in number of students. Also, doctors are less in number in some colleges where patients are more.
Conducting bedside clinics is not possible in crowded government medical college hospitals as students do not have enough space to stand. There would be many patients lying on the floor in these hospitals.
Now all patients flock to medical colleges, but if the facilities in other government hospitals are increased, it will lessen the flow to the medical colleges.
A strict referral system will ensure that only those patients referred by the family doctor would be entertained by the specialists. Another suggestion was to introduce health economics both at post- and under-graduate levels so that the students understand the priorities and thereby avoid the wasting of resources.
Avik Sengupta
McGill University, Canada,
e-mail: avik.sengupta@mail.mcgill.ca