The Medical Council of India (MCI) has removed the names of nine doctors from Kerala from the Indian Medical Register (IMR) for one year for misrepresenting facts before the MCI during its inspection of Kannur Medical College, Anjarakandy, for assessment.
The decision was taken by the Ethics Committee of MCI, after it considered a complaint by the Chairman, PG Committee of MCI, regarding irregularities committed by certain colleges in showing their faculty strength during MCI inspection. The MCI has taken such dire action against one or two doctors but never before has so many doctors registered under Travancore Cochin Medical Council been de-barred together from the IMR, it is said. These doctors will not be able to practise for one year.
Doctors summoned
Following the complaint, the Ethics Committee had summoned all nine doctors, who had been shown as the medical faculty in Kannur Medical College and who claimed to have served the college continuously for specific periods, to hear their submissions.
‘Wrong information’
The committee, after examining documents, found all nine doctors guilty of “providing wrong and misleading information to MCI for the purpose of assessment at the Medical College.” The order named the doctors as P.G. Anandakumar, V.K. Valsalan, Sebastian Zacharias, Narayana Prasad, K.M. Ashokan, C.K. Rajamma, P. Sridevi, K.V. Shivashankar and P. Mohamed Ibrahim.
The college was started in June 2006 but according to the documents, some of the doctors had been shown as working at the college even before 2006. The complaint forwarded by the chairman of the PG Committee was first considered by the Ethics Committee in June 2014.
The MCI’s action should serve as a warning to the State government also, which has been guilty in the past of transferring faculty overnight for the sake of getting through MCI’s inspection and faculty head count.
