New NMC guidelines lay down Common Course Work For PG Medicos

This comes after in the recent draft regulations regarding PG medical education, the National Medical Commission (NMC) has clearly spelled out about the common and mandatory course work for all the doctors during their MD, MS, DM, MCh, or Diploma training.

"The course work shall be common and mandatory for all Postgraduate students irrespective of discipline/specialty," NMC mentioned in Section 17.14 of the Draft.

Medical Dialogues had recently reported that in an attempt to standardize PG medical education across the country, NMC recently released the draft of 'The Postgraduate Medical Education Regulations, 2021'.

While setting out individual objectives for various courses, the guidelines also spelled out common coursework that PG students regardless of their specialties will have to undertake. These include courses in Research Methodology, Ethics, Basic Cardiac Life Support Skills (BCLS), Awareness in basics of management and audit, and other trainings including Telemedicine, Process of writing a manuscript, etc.

1. Course in Research Methodology:

a. All postgraduate students shall complete an online course in Research Methodology.

b. The students shall have to register on the portal of the designated training institutions.

c. The students have to complete the course within one year of the commencement of the batch

d. The online certificate generated on successful completion of the course and examination, thereafter, will be acceptable evidence of having completed this course.

e. The above certification shall be a mandatory requirement to be eligible to appear for the final examination of the respective postgraduate course.

f. This requirement shall be applicable for all postgraduate students.

2. Course in Ethics:

a. All postgraduate students shall complete course in Ethics including Good Clinical Practices and Good Laboratory Practices, which ever is applicable to them, to be conducted by Institutes themselves or by any other method.

b. The students have to complete the course within one year of the commencement of the batch

c. No Postgraduate Student shall be permitted to appear in the examination without completing the above course.

3. Course in Basic Cardiac Life Support Skills (BCLS)

a. All postgraduate students shall complete a course in Basic Cardiac Life Support (BCLS) skills and get duly certified.

b. The students have to complete the course within one year of the commencement of the batch.

c. No Postgraduate Student shall be permitted to appear in the examination without the above certification.

4. Awareness in basics of management and audit

Awareness in Medical Audit, Management, Health Economics, Health Information System, basics of statistics, exposure to human behavior studies and knowledge of pharmacy shall be imparted to the Post Graduate students.

5. Others:

Institutions may arrange training in other courses such as on Telemedicine, How to write a manuscript and make effective presentations, Use of Pubmed and other resources etc.as required.