October 1st 2023.
The National Medical Commission (NMC) has recently released the results of its assessment of medical colleges in 2022-23. The results were shocking as none of the institutes met the requirement of 50 per cent attendance. In addition, a majority of the medical colleges had ghost faculty and senior residents.
In response to the Associations of Emergency Physicians of India, the NMC's Undergraduate Medical Education Board (UGMEB) gave an explanation for the lack of attendance. According to them, the posting in the emergency medicine department is supposed to be a break period for the students, and hence their lack of attendance.
The NMC had earlier excluded the requirement of an emergency department for setting up new medical colleges in its June 23 draft. As a result, the number of medical colleges with functional academic emergency departments increased from 45 to 134, along with an increase in MD emergency medicine seats from 120 to 462.
When the UGMEB officials visited the colleges to assess the attendance, they were shocked to find zero attendance in all the colleges with respect to the faculty and senior resident doctors employed as per the MSR 2020.
To assess the functionality of a medical college and affiliated hospital, the UGMEB relies on artificial intelligence through the Digital Mission Mode Project installed in the NMC. The attendance is assessed through Aadhaar Enabled Biometric Attendance System, classroom teaching, and hospital functioning.
The NMC officials interacted with all colleges from August 22 to 24 to discuss all issues, including the emergency medicine departments. A total of 768 participants, and 92 university representatives, including vice chancellors, were present. All doubts of the participants were cleared, and the NMC also reduced the passing marks for MBBS students with two papers.
The UGMEB reply to AEPI stated that the real picture of emergency medicine departments is different from what it looks like on paper. It is clear from the zero attendance in all the colleges that the facts are far from the depicted picture.
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