The Medical Council of India (MCI) is mulling a single national common exit test to screen medical sciences graduates before they go on to do their internship. ''The policy is under our consideration, and a decision is likely in six months. We will then make a recommendation to the Central government, which will put in place a suitable mechanism,'', Dr Ved Prakash Mishra, Chairman of the Academic Cell of the MCI, told UNI.
''The exit test will be as per international standards, so that any medical graduate from India will have no problem getting permission to practice anywhere in the world'', he said. The test will be conducted by an individual and autonomous body to be set up by the government. Anybody passing his MBBS examination will have to pass this test before he or she can begin internship,'' Dr Mishra said. There would be a similar test for post-graduate students, Mishra said.
The exit test was part of a four-point programme chalked out by the MCI to ensure that India did not lose its edge at the international level in health care sciences in general and medical sciences in particular, Dr Mishra said. ''India will be among the four countries in the world that will have surplus manpower in health care by 2015, the other three being Brazil, Russia and China.
Health care is the only field where India has a distinct edge over China, and we will be able to retain it only if we take certain measures to maintain the standards of our medical education,'' he said.
Dr Mishra said besides the single national common exit test, the MCI's four-pronged approach included a single national common entry test, crystallisation of the national objectives in medical education, and national curriculum commensurate with these objectives. Recommendations on the entry test, objectives of medical education and curriculum had already been given to the Ministry of Health, and were under its active consideration, Dr Mishra, who is also the Vice Chancellor of the Wardha-based Datta Meghe Institute of Medical Sciences, a deemed university, said.
At present, the test for admission to various medical courses was being conducted by different bodies, and the MCI had recommended that it be conducted by a single body, he said. Thus, with a merit rank, a candidate could go to any college to seek admission, he pointed out.
''The crystallisation of national objectives in medical education should be dynamic, with periodic updates. It should be updated every five years. It is high time we updated our objectives, as it was last done in 1956,'' Dr Mishra said. The national curriculum should be developed commensurate with the national objectives, and revised according to the periodic updates, he added.