India’s Top medical colleges 2013

Against the backdrop of insistent demand for medical education and a rash of scandals involving the Medical Council of India raising serious doubts about the quality of education delivered, EducationWorld commissioned the Delhi-based C fore to rate and rank India’s Top 30 medical colleges 2013. Summiya Yasmeen reports The two years past have been the worst of times for medical education in India. A rash of scandals in the nation’s 355 medical colleges and the apex-level Medical Council of India (MCI, estb. 1934) have cast a huge shadow over the medical profession, its dubious practices, ethics and commitment to the Hippocratic oath. MCI’s reckless licencing of colleges, green-lighting arbitrary capacity enhancement and approval of sub-standard postgraduate programmes during the past decade has raised serious doubts about the competence and professional capability of the 41,469 medical graduates (MBBS) certified annually. With police and CBI investigations routinely exposing cosy sweetheart deals between medical college promoters and MCI administrators, medical education in India is in deep turmoil. “There’s no doubt that the spate of corruption scandals has seriously dented the quality of medical education delivered in India. Decades of mismanagement by MCI has resulted in out-dated curriculums, uneven distribution of medical colleges and acute shortage of faculty. The entire regulatory and licencing process needs to be overhauled with MCI playing a facilitative rather than obstructive role to improve standards in medical education. The many conditions, some of which are completely unnecessary for establishing new medical colleges or expanding capacity, must be rationalised to create a transparent approval process. India hosts a lion’s share — 18 percent — of the world’s medical colleges and our doctors enjoy great respect in the West. The government, council, faculty and professionals must come together to cleanse and revive medical education,” says Dr. S. Kumar, president (medical education) of the Gokula Education Foundation which runs M.S. Ramaiah Medical College, Bangalore (estb.1979), with an enrolment of 1,000-plus under-graduate and postgraduate students. During the infamous ten-year reign (2001-2010) of disgraced chairman Ketan Desai — arrested in 2010 on charges of corruption — MCI licenced and ‘recognised’ 35 new medical colleges, most of them with inadequate infrastructure and faculty. In May 2010, MCI was dissolved by an ordinance signed by former President Pratibha Patil. Subsequently, the Union health ministry constituted a six-member Board of Governors (BoG) with a one-year term under the chairmanship of eminent gastroenterologist Dr. S.K. Sarin. The BoG’s 12-month term expired in May 2011 and a new four-member board was reconstituted under the chairmanship of Dr. K.K. Talwar, former director of the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Research, Chandigarh. Last month, the Union health ministry reconstituted MCI with seven members enjoying a six-month term, after which elections are to be held within MCI and its “democratic structure’ restored. Though MCI’s liberal licencing of medical colleges over the past decade has resulted in the number of med schools jumping from 141 in 2000 to 355 currently, the demand-supply gap in medical education is still a yawning chasm. Contemporary India has perhaps…