LAHORE, Nov 5: The King Edward Medical College academic council and the Punjab University board of studies in medicine have unanimously rejected the Higher Education Commission's recommendations regarding eligibility criteria for the promotion and appointment of medical teachers.

The KEMC and the PU had called their academic council and board of studies in medicine meetings on Friday to take cognizance of the HEC's letter. Both the bodies have passed resolutions to reject the commission's recommendations.

The KEMC academic council, chaired by principal Prof Dr Mumtaz Hassan, stated that the HEC's recommendations regarding the future promotion and appointment of medical teachers had triggered a wave of anger and disappointment among the university qualification related medical teachers, specialists and students. It said the recommendations were unjustified and impracticable in Pakistan.

It may be mentioned that the HEC had recently circulated a letter to the vice-chancellors of universities in the country regarding "eligibility conditions for appointment of faculty members in universities and degree-awarding institutions."

The HEC had recommended that "the eligibility requirement of a qualification of PhD degree for faculty members in the clinical medicine science discipline may be replaced with FCPS (Pakistan)/ Membership of Royal Colleges (UK)/ Diplomate of American Board and equivalent international terminal qualifications (as determined by the HEC)."

The KEMC academic council said the MD/MS/M.Phil/MDS major degree qualifications were issued by the chartered universities of Pakistan and notified in the third schedule of additional qualification of the Ordinance 1962 and Act of Parliament 1973 of Pakistan Medical and Dental Council and have both clinical and research components.

The academic council said the 42 professors posted at the KEMC included 13 professors having postgraduate qualifications from Pakistani universities, 11 from the UK, nine from the College of Physicians and Surgeons Pakistan, five from the USA, three from Iran and one from Sweden.

In this scenario, the KEMC council recommended that the HEC must give equivalence to all similar national and international qualifications strictly on technical grounds on the basis of uniform minimum requirements for entry requirements, duration of the courses, learning objectives in the curriculum, requirements of the learning environment (teachers, technology and supplies) and overall evaluation.

In order to save the HEC from any such confusion in future, the academic council said the HEC should issue "uniform general guidelines regarding all sets of similar qualifications." The council resolved that the KEMC after becoming university in near future would continue MD/MS/M.Phil/MDS and FCPS programmes.

The council observed that the HEC recommendations, which had been issued without involving university stakeholders, should be rephrased as under; "The minimum eligibility requirement of appointment and promotion of faculty members in the clinical medicine science discipline will be MD/MS/M.Phil/FCPS (Pakistan)/ membership of Royal Colleges (UK)/Diplomate of American Board and equivalent international terminal qualifications (as determined by HEC). The candidates with additional qualifications of PhD and DSc will be given preference."

Meanwhile, the PU's board of studies in medicine meeting at the syndicate room also rejected the recommendations, describing those as impracticable. It would affect the future of hundreds of doctors waiting for their promotions and recruitment as well as the postgraduate students currently preparing for their examinations.

The board meeting, chaired by KEMC principal Prof Dr Mumtaz Hassan, requested the HEC to re-phrase the eligibility criteria and include the MD/MS/M.Phil/MDS degrees. Otherwise, the board resolved that the universities would become redundant with regard to the imparting medical education.

The board of studies meeting was attended by Fatima Jinnah Medical College Principal Prof Dr Akbar Chaudhry, PU medical faculty associate dean Prof Dr S M Owais, Federal Postgraduate Medical Institute Sheikh Zayed Hospital deputy dean Prof Dr Abdul Hameed Khan, Prof Dr Ahmad Waseem Yousaf, Prof Dr Asad Aslam Khan, Prof Dr I A Naveed, Prof Dr Rehana Aziz, Prof Dr Fehmida Naheed, Prof Dr Attiya Khalid and Prof Dr Bushra Farooqui.

It is learnt that the FJMC has also called its academic council meeting on Saturday (today) to discuss and express concern over the HEC letter.