BS RAWAT
NEW DELHI: Citing the increase in cost of medical education in the country, the Association of Diplomate of National Board (DNB) Doctors, a representative body of DNB doctors across the country, has demanded parallel medical education systems under MCI and National Board of Examinations (NBE).

Speaking at a national conference of DNB doctors, the experts said that MCI and NBE be merged to form a common board to solve the woes of medical education in the country. This will significantly bring down the cost of medical education at undergraduate and postgraduate level.

Dr Pawan Kapoor, Founder member of NABH, highighted that DNBs have an important role to play in medical education of the country.

He said, “The country needs DNBs to be part of medical education with equal status to MD/MS in teaching without any additional requirements”

Chairman of Medicolegal Action Group, Dr Neeraj Nagpal, highlighted the stringent pattern of DNB Final Examination and claimed that DNB doctors are better equipped at dealing with practical situations.

He said, “NBE should be given a statutory status, and doctor associations should work towards it”

Advocate Amit Kumar, who drafted the NEET Regulation, said that the norms for setting up medical colleges should be relaxed and unnecessary rules like adequate space between two beds, type of classroom, etc. should be removed or amended to bring down the costs.

Dr Jateen Ukrani, President of Association of DNB Doctors, suggested that NBEs standardization methods like centralized collection of tuition fees and regular research workshops are very important and should be implemented on a large scale for medical education and will also help in improving the negative perception of Doctors in the society.

The doctors also opined that medical education should be affordable and accessible to the masses and in the current times its not even affordable to the middle class.