All Faculty Development Program Workshops Considered at par: NMC

New Delhi: All the Faculty Development Programm (FDP) Workshops conducted under the names of Basic Course in Medical Education (BCME), Revised Basic course workshops (rBCw), or Basic Course in Medical Education Technologies (BCMET) are all considered at par, the National Medical Commission (NMC) has confirmed recently.

Issuing a circular in this regard on May 24, 2023, the Director of the Undergraduate Medical Education Board (UGMEB), Shambhu Sharan Kumar informed, "This is to inform all stakeholders that Faculty Development Programm (FDP) Workshop conducted under the nomenclature BCME or rBCW or BCMET are all considered at par."

With this, NMC has clarified that is a faculty has undergone any of these workshops, it will be considered as completed/attended. "Therefore, if a faculty has undergone any of these, within the prescribed guidelines, it is to be considered as completed/attended," stated the circular.

The Medical Council of India, by the MCI Regulations on Graduate Medical Education, 1997, made it mandatory for all medical colleges to establish Medical Education Units (MEUs) or departments in order to enable faculty members to avail modern education technology for teaching. In order to boost this activity, Basic Course Workshops in Medical Education Technologies are being conducted by the medical regulator since 2009 through selected Regional and Nodal Centres, (Nodal Centres are upgraded regional Centres) located at medical colleges with required infrastructural and trained manpower.

Also Read: Faculty Development: NMC to reallocate Medical Colleges, Standalone PG Institutes and Regional Centres, releases details

Medical Dialogues had previously reported that earlier this year, NMC released the general guidelines for Faculty Development Programs conducted by the Commission. 

Issuing the revised guidelines for conduct of various Faculty Development Programs by Nodal Centers, Regional Centers, and Medical Colleges, the NMC circular dated March 22 mentioned, "To ensure uniformity in conduct of FDP, training modules have been prepared by the expert group, incorporating certain common suggestions received from the environment. The training modules give a comprehensive overview of each topic besides outlining the objectives of a topic which must be covered during these workshops. These training modules shall be shared separately with NCs and RCs."

NMC mentioned that "The rBCW is rechristened as BCME (Basic Course in Medical Education) incorporating relevant changes. And, a Curriculum Implementation Support Program. 3 (CISP-III) has been formulated to take care of the training of additional clinical faculty for better implementation of CBME since the students of CBME curriculum have entered their clinical phase. The recommendations of the expert group have now been accepted and approved by the competent authority."

The revised FDP guidelines issued by NMC in its recent circular include, Financial Aspects/ Budget Provisions for Faculty Development Programs, Guidelines for composition of MEU and Curriculum committee of Medical Colleges, Guidelines for conduct of Basic Course of Medical Education (BCME), MEU information format for FDP proposal, Curriculum Committee information format for FDP proposal, List of participants for FDP, Guidelines for NMC appointed Coordinator of FDP, Convener's/ Coordinator report format for BCME, CISP III Guidelines, CISP III Program, Convener's report format for CISP III, Coordinator report format for CISP III, and Feedback form for CISP III participants.

To view the NMC circular, click on the link below:

https://medicaldialogues.in/pdf_upload/nmc-fdp-210456.pdf

Also Read: NMC releases revised guidelines for Faculty Development Programmes, Details