A large number of medical students have expressed their satisfaction over the restoration of previous status of the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC), terming it a good omen to safeguarding the future of medical and dental education in Pakistan.
According to them, during the era of Pakistan Medical Commission (PMC) in the previous government tenure, mostly medical students remained under extreme stress due to inconsistency in policies of the past administration of the commission.
Similarly, they added, many students who participated in the MDCAT exam, had to face hardships due to faulty examination system and the attitude of administration of not addressing the genuine problems of aspirants due to which the MDCAT exam lost its efficacy.
“We have to face errors in all process of MDCAT exam as even the answer keys were faulty and many brilliant students couldn’t get through, while many failed students were declared pass,” Atif Kaleem, a student said.
He said, due to this situation thousands of students got admissions abroad.
Another medical student, Basit Khan said that the PMC conducted the entry test by arranging it through external testing authority, which resulted in depriving 55 percent of Sindh students from getting admission in medical and dental colleges.
He said that the capable students had been deprived of admissions as no criteria for awarding these marks were given to the colleges, and it was according to their whims and wishes that those students were selected on a faulty exam held by the PMC.
“Scams of millions of rupees are under inquiry against the PMC for giving contract to ghost companies, who were not even registered at the time of bidding,” he added.
Salma Maroof, a mother of a medical student, said that the PMDC had capped the tuition fee of all local and international students from time to time while the PMC had given no fee bar. “Rather the PMC removed the cap on fee by allowing all the colleges to charge as per their wishes.”
She said that the PMDC had prescribed minimum qualifications and experience required for teachers for appointment in medical and dental institutions while the PMC left the faculty on the mercy of the institutions. Senior faculty members were humiliated by the institutions while the future of students was in hands of junior and inexperienced faculty.
According to official sources at PMDC, as per PMDC bill the composition of council is nominated having representation of all the provinces’ health bodies, universities or stakeholders to give their input in policy-making for its smooth implementation.
“Whereas in PMC all members were nominated directly using discretionary powers without following any merit while all members of PMC council were having conflict of interest working in private sectors, and nominated without criteria.”
They said that PMDC was an internationally accredited whereas the PMC faced a lot of problems in accreditation with international stakeholders which created panic among the doctors working abroad.
The sources said that as per PMDC rules the local students were registered by PMDC after passing from the recognized institutions whereas the PMC created three exams for full license, provisional license and temporary license.
Unlike PMDC’s method of taking NEB exams through one recognized public university to register foreign graduate students, the MBBS or BDS local students who used to take five university exams had to again appear in National licensing exit exam and then were given a full license, the sources added.
Similarly, foreign graduates were put under some pathway not given in the act as the act referred to prepare assessment criteria, they added.
They said that during the PMDC time, the registration of the postgraduate qualifications in or outside Pakistan was given after the recommendation from the federal government and inspection by Council whereas PMC without having any defined criteria decided to grant registration to only clinical qualification.
They said that a detailed procedure was adopted by any institution seeking recognition with PMDC. As a regulator, the PMDC used to monitor, inspect and regulate all the medical and dental colleges while the PMC handed over the inspections to another public sector organization to conduct inspection of medical and dental colleges.
