There appears to be no easy solution to the scarcity of doctors in rural areas in the near future as the Medical Council of India (MCI) is set to dilute the proposed medical course which was tipped to have provided enough trained medicos in such areas.
According to senior officials in the regulatory board, after rigorous discussions of experts on the proposed bachelor of rural health care course, which was earlier approved by the Union health minister, the MCI is ready with the new version.
The name of the course has now been proposed as BSc in community health and will be limited to dealing in public health issues, vaccination, therapeutic medicine etc. The MCI is expected to send the new proposal this week to the health ministry for its approval.
“There was too much of content in the earlier curriculum. It has been changed, the experts had been working on it for last three months. They have had their final meeting and the new course will be sent to the health ministry this week for its approval,” confirmed MCI Board of Governors (BoG) head K.K. Talwar.
While it has been decided that one pursuing the course will not be called a doctor, instead a community health officer, it will be notified by the university. The duration of the course remains to be same as decided earlier, which was 3.5 years. “Though it is not a doctorate course, the MCI is not mandated to notify it,” added a MCI official.
Meanwhile, the health ministry is looking forward to the new proposal. Union health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad infact had last week accused the MCI for not clearing the unified syllabus for the rural MBBS course mooted by his ministry to tackle doctors scarcity in villages across the country.