Creation of a pool of unskilled low paid doctors because sub standard healthcare industry is being expanded sounded and felt like a conspiracy theory, until today.
Today NeXT was announced to be conducted for the present final year MBBS batch. The year where you are really supposed to form the foundation of clinical skills. I already hear almost all of my batchmates saying “No going to wards from tomorrow, No semesters, No practicals, only MCQs”. They’re not to be blamed, when the logic of learning is exam oriented and the exam is MCQ based why not?
NMC says we’ll make ‘Clinical Based MCQs’, a joke! Any student who has attended a coaching class and solved a few MCQs knows that sitting at home for hours after hours staring at your screen pays off better in terms of performing at Clinical Based MCQs than clinics itself. What is the implication? Students won’t find any motivation to go to wards, to bother about semesters, to bother about practical exams. Hypothetically someone who never attends medical school might be better off at this exam than someone who went through rigorous practicals in their UG life.
NMC’s language and actions are completely contradictory. It introduces Competencies, Foundation Course, Early Clinical Exposure, Electives and harps on about clinical exposure while pushing you to online lectures away from clinics.
Really a pool of MCQ doctors will be produced who can perfectly diagnose a clinical question but not a clinical situation.
We talk about violence on doctors, what is supposed to happen when such a doctor starts their internship. NeXT says that practicals are supposed to be learnt during internship, any intern will tell you how much they learnt during their internship in regards to diagnostic and clinical skills when they were overburdened with clerical work and sending/collecting blood samples. ‘Certified yet Unqualified’ doctors will be produced who will be beaten up in clinics.
In a nutshell the gasping healthcare system will be pointed towards a crash course. This isn’t and shouldn’t not be the concern of medical students only, this is an attack on medical education system and the overall healthcare system. These unqualified and insecure doctors will be forced to be employed at lower wages.
Who stands to profit? Coaching Industries and Private Healthcare Industry. Who stands to suffer? Medical Education, Healthcare System, Students, Doctors and most importantly patients.
