6-month ultrasound training for docs
Doctors will have to undergo a six months training from accredited institutes by the state government to be able to use ultrasound machines.
The training, according to the officials in the Union health ministry, will enable MBBS doctors to acquire general skills primarily for abdomen scans.
To avoid misuse and abuse, it has also been proposed that only the teaching hospitals will be eligible to conduct six months training. For the existing doctors, however, who have been conducting ultrasounds, the government is making mandatory for them to undergo a “competency based test” which they will have to undergo during the time of renewal of their registration. The renewal, officials say will be given on the basis of the results of the test.
The Medical Council of India has also put in place guidelines and an accreditation system for institutes that teach people how to use ultrasound machines.
An expert group which was formed to look into the new guidelines have come out with the specifications like-what kind of training is required for a person conducting ultrasound, qualification for the person conducting ultrasound, institutes that could impart such training and content of the training.
Under the Pre-conception & Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques Act (PC & PNDT), 1994, so far, besides a sonologist, imaging specialist and radiologist, anybody with a six months training or a one-year experience in sonography or image scanning could use an ultrasound machine.
“The training module was under consideration for sometime. The Medical Council of India has finalised a curriculum and the training module, which will be presented at the upcoming meeting of the Central Supervisory Board on Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic techniques (PC&PNDT) Act, slated to happen in July,” Anuradha Gupta, additional secretary and mission director, NRHM, told this newspaper.
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