3 MBBS subjects to now be taught in Hindi at MP medical colleges, Doctors frown over govt's move

Bhopal: On October 16, Union Home Minister Amit Shah is going to launch first-year MBBS textbooks, which have been translated from English into Hindi, in the state of Madhya Pradesh. With this, three MBBS subjects - anatomy, physiology and biochemistry - will be taught in Hindi to first-year MBBS students in all 13 government medical colleges of the state.

Upset with the Government's move, the Federation of All India Medical Association (FAIMA) has stated that the step will take the country 50 years behind in the coming 10 years.

However, the course in Hindi does not mean that the teachers and students will study in Hindi only, but immediately the words of English will be written in Devanagari script.

There is a lot of activity these days at Gandhi Medical College as the Hindi translation of the MBBS course is going on in the college.

State Medical Education Minister Vishwas Sarang is also camping here because an ambitious project of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is taking shape at this place. A Hindi translation of the MBBS course is going on here.

"We are trying our best to take forward Hindi. Under this, we have translated the course material into Hindi. We have included 3 first-year courses in the first phase, after that, we are going to include some second-year systems," Sarang said.

Sarang told ANI, "In many countries like Germany, China, Russia, and France, medical education is done in the local language, then why can't it be done in our country? This is the first experiment in 75 years of the country," he added.

"On February 11 this year, we held the first meeting and subsequently constituted a task force and a Hindi Chikitsa Prakoshth (Hindi medical cell). We then identified the writers and publishers of books that were being used as textbooks in the most number of colleges and signed MoUs (Memorandum of Understanding) with them to prevent legal hurdles. Then we got doctors from Government Medical Colleges to translate the contents," Sarang said.

"There was resistance from the experts. Some said it was not possible while others said students might lose the competitive advantage but we persisted taking all into account all these reservations. One set of doctors prepared the first draft, another fine-tuned it further. This was followed by the validation and proofreading stages. We chose three subjects because these are primarily taught in the first year," Sarang added.

Also Read:MBBS study material, lectures in Hindi soon in Madhya Pradesh

Meanwhile, the government's move has now met criticism. Speaking to Medical Dialogues, Dr Rohan Krishna, President of the Federation of All India Medical Association (FAIMA) said, "It is going to affect the students adversely. Medical education needs to be at par with international guidelines and bodies. It has to tie up with the criterion of WHO, UNICEF, FDA and whatnot. Students will get unnecessarily confused and the quality will fall down."

"At present, there are very less effective drug research and quality control in the country. In any country that has opted for a regional language protocol of medical education there quality of doctors has gone really bad. Be it Russia, who was supposed to be one of the top in medical education has now fallen down like anything. China, Ukraine, Philippines. Every country where regional language MBBS training is done," he added.

"The doctors face the brunt after completion of course where they are not familiar with international guidelines, henceforth poor salary in that country and no entry in other countries. Most importantly in the end, the patients suffer. This retrograde step will take the country 50 years behind in the coming 10 years," he further said.