WFME accreditation raises NMC's responsibility to strengthen medical education: Parliamentary panel
National Medical Commission
New Delhi: A parliamentary panel recently pointed out that the international accreditation granted to the National Medical Commission (NMC) emphasises its heightened responsibility to strengthen equitable, high-quality medical education and promote evidence-based practices across the country.
According to a recent PTI report, a parliamentary panel observed that an international accreditation to NMC, India's statutory body that regulates medical education and institutes, underlines its responsibility towards strengthening an equitable quality education system and evidence-based practices.
The World Federation of Medical Education (WFME) has conferred the "international accreditation" for a period of ten years to the National Medical Commission (NMC).
The Department-related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health and Family Welfare, in a report presented to Rajya Sabha on Thursday, said that the accreditation has entrusted the NMC with a pivotal role to consolidate high quality medical education in the country.
The NMC is tasked with ensuring quality medical education for fostering affordability and accessibility to future generations' healthcare needs.
The panel said only a robust and modern medical education system with adequate investment on advanced physical infrastructure and skilled and trained faculty would be a guarantee for a better healthcare in the future.
"...international accreditation to NMC is not the end of NMC's role but the beginning of its responsibility towards strengthening equitable quality education system across the country with due impetus on evidence based practices with scientific and modern advancement, critical thinking to imbibe professional pursuit, ethical integrity and social behavioral inclination amongst medical practitioners," it said in its report, quotes PTI
The committee expressed dissatisfaction with the response of the government on the committee's recommendation on budgetary support to research work.
It said that spending by both the government as well as the medical colleges in health research has remained stagnant in terms of percentage of GDP since last few financial years and recommended that medical research and innovation needs massive impetus.
The panel stated that there is an urgent need to substantially increase the government expenditure on health research infrastructure or provide incentives and an ecosystem to collaborate with leading private research firms.
To have result-oriented and gainful research, the committee reiterated its recommendation that the government should formulate guidelines to decide on priority research fields based on disease burden and focus areas of the country.
For this, colleges can form a collegium of senior faculties and decide on the research priority, it said. Funds for such research should be partly provided by the institute and partly by government agencies like ICMR, the panel added.
