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Latest News |
| 15th
February 2010 / Times of India / Delhi Edition |
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TECH DOCS
Doctors from IIT Govt to brainstorm today
New Delhi: Will Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs)
soon start producing doctors The health ministry is meeting
on Tuesday to decide. Health secretary K Sujatha Rao has
called a meeting of top ministry honchos, directors of
medical institutes and chairmen of medical councils on
Tuesday to ascertain whether allowing institutes like
IITs to teach medicine will help medical education or
dilute its quality .
This will be the first major meeting to discuss the issue.
Those called to attend include directors of All India
Institute of Medical Sciences, PGI (Chandigarh ), Sanjay
Gandhi Post Graduate Institute (Lucknow), JIPMER, NIMHANS,
National Institute of Communicable Diseases , National
Institute of Paramedical Sciences and principal of CMC
Vellore. Chairmen of the Medical Council and the Nursing
Council of India will also attend the meeting along with
eminent doctors like Dr Ranjit Roychoudhury, Dr Devi Shetty
, Dr Anupam Sibal and cardiologist Dr K Srinath Reddy.
The all important meeting will discuss three major issues:
whether IITs be allowed to start MBBS course, how to create
the National Council for Human Resource in Health (NCHRH)
the overarching regulatory body that would replace the
existing Medical, Dental, Nursing and Pharma Councils
of India and how to reduce shortage of medical personnel
in India.
A health ministry official said, We want to meet experts
to understand whether it is feasible to allow IITs to
start medical courses and whether it will help better
medical education. Once we know their view, the ministry
will form its opinion on the proposal and send it to the
HRD ministry. Opinion is clearly divided on the proposal.
However, the MCI has come out in support. Speaking to
TOI, MCI chairman Dr Ketan Desai said, We welcome the
move. We know that if IIT starts a medical school, they
will have the same standard as their other courses. They
will ensure they have the best faculty as their reputation
will be at stake. Some IITs, like Kharagpur and Hyderabad,
are working on starting medical schools in about three
years. Ministry officials said IIT Kharagpur has supposedly
signed an MoU with University of California, San Diego,
to set up a hospital which will offer graduate , PG and
research programmes in medicine and bio-medical engineering.
IIT Hyderabad has been expressing its interest to offer
MD degrees in three years. In recent meetings with IIT
directors, HRD minister Kapil Sibal had asked them to
expand their courses.
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