Intention to produce more doctors, prevent poaching of experienced teachers
To overcome the shortage of medical practitioners, the Medical Council of India (MCI) has recommended enhancing the retirement age of government medical professionals to 70 years from the existing 65 years. It has also suggested relaxations in the land requirement for setting up new medical colleges.
Announcing this at a press conference here on Saturday, S.K. Sarin, Chairman of the Board of Governors of the MCI, said enhancing the retirement age of government medical professionals would help in producing more MBBS doctors and prevent private medical colleges from poaching on experienced and talented teachers.
In another important recommendation made to the Union Health and Family Ministry, the MCI has said that the land requirement for setting up a new medical college should be reduced to 10 acres instead of the present 20 acres in urban areas, but within a 5-km radius. In difficult areas like hilly areas, tribal areas and the North East region, the land can be taken up at two places within a 10-km radius for setting up a hospital and medical colleges so that students are able to visit the patients in the hospital.
The government had earlier relaxed the land norms from 25 acres to 20 acres with permission to take land in two pieces in difficult areas and densely populated cities about a year ago due to non-availability of large chunks of land. Similarly, the retirement age of Central government doctors was also increased to 65 years from 60 years. The Government medical colleges had also been allowed to increase the number of under-graduate seats but without compromising on the quality of education.
The MCI too, has recommended reducing the student bed ratio from 1:8 to 1:5, meaning that a 1,500-bedded hospital could have 250 undergraduate students.
Keywords: MCI, government doctors, retirement age
I think all those doctors who want age to be raised should be posted in rural areas during this period because at that time they have no family resposibility and they could do charity in the fag end of their life
When would the new generation learn and work if the older ones don't give them space to work. Still if they still are so enthusiastic to work and share their experience, they could be invited for guest lectures and clinics on payment basis. Further new assistant professors are being recruited on contractural basis only and not on permanent basis so one can imagine if a person is recruited at the age of 33years that too only contractural. The MCI seems to be the most unimaginative body in the past and now the present. This is a shameless proposal. It would be better if this body looks into how to improve medical education without compromising the quality.
Medical education in India is about to become a disaster. Reasons are :- 1.many private colleges keep faculty to only fulfil the requirements of MCI.so they want faculty at low salary. Retired doctors are already getting pension.so they will be agree for small salary.it will decrease the salary structure in medical colleges and would create problems for young doctors. 2.Many colleges have on roll faculty -ie faculty only for inspection. Retired doctors become part time faculty. And decrease the opportunity for new doctors. 3.MCI is continuously decreasing faculty requirement to open new college. And also increasing PG seats.and now increasing retirement age. The whole scenario will increase unemployment among doctors. 4. All decisions are in favour of the corporate sector to provide maximum benefit to private colleges, by increasing retirement age and by decreasing land requirement. 5. In near future medical college increase just like engineering, pharmacy, nursing, management and B.ed. colleges. With no quality education and high rate of unemployement. 6. There are already no govt vacancy for doctors. In Rajasthan, the government is paying a low salary on contract. There are no permanent jobs even after 6 years of study for an MBBS degree.
This new MCI team should have had a foresight on making this decison. It has been seen that a retired professor will never have any zeal, wish, desire to either treat a patient or teach a student. Already this senior faculty are overburdened in private meddical colleges. They have never taught the essence of the subject rather distracted the students from the subject. This definetly deters medical education and patients are at risk. This sets India back.the new board of governers should do surprise inspections and rather tha decrease the age to 60 yrs to create more jobs for the younger generation.
this new MCI team should have had a foresight on making this decison, it has been seen and witnessed by many that a retired professor will never have any zeal, wish, desire to either treat a patient or teach a student. Already this senior faculty are overburdened in private meddical colleges. They have never taught the essence of the subject rather distracted the students from the subject. This definetly deters medical education and patients are at risk. This sets India back.
The life expectancy in India for both the gender is 63 years. Increasing the age of retirement up to 70 years is really meaningless. In this context it is sincerely advised not to increase the age up to 70 years and it will not do any good for a prospective developed India....
In this era no one retires. A teacher has much to impart. The long term experience gained in the Medical Profession and in the teaching field by an individual must be well utilized.
I strongly recomend the increase in the age of retirement for the volunteers in teaching.
An early action shd. be taken.
1) Raising the retirement age - Is it applicabe to those in the Private Medical colleges also?
2) Is this changed rule bing implemented now?
3) Govt Medical Professional - Does this term mean only those in government medical colleges or it encludes those in non teaching government instituktions as well?
Can i have the clarifications for my above enquiries
when the othr govt employyes are retired at the age limit of 60yrs why not the doctors......as such the intellect capacity thnking decision making declines with Ageing.....this definitely affects the quality control,teachig..moreover students undergoing training are deficient bcoz many of the senior faculty members are accompanied with one or the othr health ailments like DEMENTIA,DIABETES,ARTHRITIS,.....I personally feel this is going to only help them to earn more and more with negligible and ill performance, and this will definitely make the medical education stagnant- standstillll and production of surplus substandard doctors....i feel THese will spend their UNPRODUCTIVE hours of life pretending industrious,skillfull,punctual,and criticizing the YOUTHS...and with this all youths will have definite halt in Upliftment of their careerand discouragement...and hampers the performance of all youths... by this the conclusion is 1) no performance from the age barred retired faculty 2)discouragement in the youth declines the performance.. this affects the medical students,patients and the community so all are at risk this ensues a system failure
its just diluting the medical education standard and reducing oppurtunities to youngsters. Basically all these private medical colleges have manipulated the MCI for their recognitions. So i do not commend the MCI.
ENHANCEMENT OF RETIREMENT AGE IS NOT THE SOLUTION OF PROBLEM , JUST ONLY GREVIOUS THE PROBLEM . THIS WILL BE ONLY SOLVED BY PROPER PROMOTION AND FRESS RECRUITMENT .
It was a long awaited recommendation of MCI. A person like me will be benefitted, and will start contributing and sharing rich experiences in our respective fields. However I would suggest that a person above 65 can only be taken in teaching areas and let the planners/administrators be from younger generations. Because barring few, most of individuals lakes the electrifying energy, interest for long term planning and killing instinct to show extraordinary performance,as carrier building is not his motto at this point.
Its a major welcome win win situation where we can get more and more Medical Graduates trained by Well experienced hands and in turn help Indian People to get served in cause of medical assistance.
It is due to mci norms that teachers having Msc or PhD degree in nonclinical branches don't get the due respect at central or state level though they are dedicated teachers as they can't practice and are in academics and research, while those having MBBS with any postgraduation be it MSc/MD/PhD practice covertly. these so called non-medical teachers dont get the promotion in due course of time and hence thier motivation level is lowered. what steps MCI can take to improve thier status. many such teachers have left the country and are highly paid and respected abroad where as thier counterparts having MD degree dont even fetch that salary and respect.most of the comments suggest the lethargic attitude and more demand of pay
Not a bad idea at all! Old Doctors have some invaluable experience and the ability to outperform the new joiners when in tense conditions. Also, increasing the age would mean less pension because Doctors are actually working rather than sitting at home. However, the more important thing to do is to implement strict time measures as I see a lot of doctors coming more than an hour late to the hospital.
Most welcome steps by the Govt. The stantard of medical education based on the quality of the faculty. Rise in age will boost the Medical education for today's need. Particularly the PG institute must have experienced & knowledgable senior Faculty members to train the Medical teachers in R&D too. Like Arts & Science faculty, medical teachers must have M.Phil & PhD for their CAREER ADVANCEMENTS for the post of PG Teachers particularly Professor & HOD ranks. The rise in age with appropriate qualifications will be adopteded in future.
Even though the MCI had recommended the increase of retirement age for medical faculty, the bureaucratic IAS officers in the government will not aloow this to happen. The IAS cadre is the major huddle in the development of our mother India. When are they going to change their attitude to be people friendly?
The central Govt decision to increase the age of medically trained and qualified doctors is most timely and appropriate.In fact this most important human resource of our country should never be wasted by retirement, as the saying goes OLD IS GOLD. Our country has a target in front of us MDG 2015.We have to use all the resources at our disposal to meet these MDGs
So is this increase in age of retirement from 65 to 70 years only for Government Medical Colleges or is it relevant also to the Private Medical colleges?
Will these changes be applicable for the dental colleges also throughout the country. I should be grateful if someone can apprise me about this.
Sanction all new medical colleges only in the rural areas which will benefit the underprivileged. There are good number of private/corporate hospitals in the city.
Shortage of doctors can be best managed by recruiting new doctors who can serve the hospital for long. The increase in retirement age is no solution; but pushing the situation for five years more. After 5 years the same status will be there.This has been tried in past and found to be a failure. It will not benifit people or country in long run except the older genre of doctors to get salary for five years and enjoy the chair. Everybody in the medical field knows that the junior doctors and consultants run the show and the senior person sitting in chair takes the credit. have you ever seen a professor in the emergency at anytime???? Forget about to work at late hours in night......... this will never improve. Even in the so called best govt hospitals; AIIMS, safdarjung, PGI, LNJP ect this is the real truth.
So to solve the problem, MCI need to go to the root of the system. They should ask government to increase posts of consultants available especially at junior level. This will solve the problem better.
Hospitals donot run on doctors sitting in chambers and giving orders. There are already good number of senior doctors doing that in every hospital. The need is of doctors who can actually work and manage situations. This is possible by recruiting freshly trained doctors only. If junior consultants are made available to emergency services and other clinical work, the situation will improve drastically.
This will also prevent new good young doctors from migrating to private set ups in search of jobs.
Just go through the data of the hospital recruitment of specialist doctors for last 10-15 years.The faculty strength has hardly improved in most clinical departments. So how could the same number of people can produce a better situation just by working to the late age??? There seems to be no logic behind it.
Number of PG seats should be increased at least three fold. No point in producing non specialists . Or undergraduate admissions should be closed for at least 5 years so as to avoid exploitation of MBBS doctors.
Before going for this,improve standards of medical education like removal of bio chemistry eligibility for endocrinology.plz do it
MCI is the most self righteous organization we have seen in decades, I cannot help but only say, that medical education in government colleges in India is better than some premier institutions in London or Tokyo, I just want to say that decreasing the number of doctors with so many strict measures will not help India in long term as people will die of diseases and epidemic break outs, doctor population must be increased, more and more medical colleges must come into place and patient doctor population must be bought to reasonable number, the other problem really is tribal regions where there are no hospitals for miles, doctors must be sent there with good packages.
It does not sound good to raise retirement age on account of shortage of doctors as so many doctors are unemployed, it is just to benefit those already in services.
Enhancing the retirement age is not the answer, since shortage of younger doctors passing out and being eligible are not the issue. the issue is how to make the government/teaching jobs more attractive by making these more satisfying. There should be other benefits given to the young faculty likely congenial and proactive working environment, to improve their academic performance, make their family life more secure, giving them some additional benefits for their children for education, productivity linked benefits with transparent rules. There should be an in-built mechanisms to assesses the poor performance of those under-performers and their re-dressal.
there are so many persons with post graduate diploma qualifications.Such persons ,if they have teaching experience should be ,permitted to work as lecturer by MCI.
Hon'bl. Mr. Kapil Sibal should make a bold move and not fear criticism. In fact we need a "stride" or "leap" now., instead of a "move". At the moment we have 300 Medical Colleges in India (approx. 30,000 seats). We need to have 1,500 Medical Colleges in India., therefore., Mr. Sibal and the MCI should approve 1,200 Medical Colleges to be established in the Private Sector. "First let us have Quantity - and then let us build Quality" should be the strategy.
Do you think that retired doctors are sitting idle!! They are doing private practice. Hence increasing the retirement age may not help in making availabale health services. Why do we not open more quality medical colleges.
It is very wrong recommendation.When no other departments is interesting to enhance age of their employees than why for Doctors.It would also be unjustice for young unemployed Doctors.
I ask the Govt. to accept the recommendation of the MCI, because that shall very rightly set the ball rolling for the employees in other professions - with their own arguments- to have the opportunity to enhance the retirement age limits which they are enjoying now at various institutions (at some places it is 60 yr, at some other places it is 65 yrs). The best suggestion, if you ask me, is to let the employees continue their jobs till their death, which may be well beyond 70.
Without raising the age limit to 70 years, the Govt. should increase the number of Medical Colleges so that a large number of doctors come out every year to cope with the shortage problem of doctors.
There are two simple solutions for this problem of insufficient doctors for medical profession in govt services and producing more medical professionals by increasing the number of medical college .
1. Govt has to have an agreement with the students of govt medical colleges that they must work in govt service as their education cost is borne by the taxpayer and this will solve the shortage .
2. Medical colleges must be started attached to disrict head quarters hospitals and thus we will have a medical college for every district. As the hospital is already existing , the expenses of establishing medical colleges will be very much saved .
Dr Shiv Sarin has taken a good stand and recommended overdue amendments but he has ignored a important issue- Private practice. All medical institutes and medical colleges staff should have a pay rise and should not be allowed private pracicee at home and concentrate on teaching and raise standard of medical education. It's dismal at present and students are suffering a lot.
There is no retirement age for Doctors or Professors who are Doctors in US and if you see the number of Faculty Members at Johns Hopkins in US, you think that when will we in India create an Institution like this where they have over 4000 Faculty Members in the Medical School. I guess whole of Southern or Northern India may not have those many Faculty Members in all the Medical Colleges in India.
Remove all the land requirements for Medical School as more than land, we need faculty members who can teach and preach.
Retirement age has to be increased as there is shortage of experienced staff in Medical colleges and new medical colleges are coming up to meet the growing need of our country where already there is decreased doctor population ratio when compared to developed nations, i think its a right move.
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