PESHAWAR: Medical teachers, who would earlier get promotion to next grades on seniority basis, will now have to compete for promotion to higher positions in accordance with the Medical Teaching Institutions Reforms Law 2015.

“There will be three main criteria, including clinical performance, education performance and research, for promotion of medical teachers. Previously, the promotions took place on the basis of seniority,” Prof Nausherwan Khan Burki, told Dawn.

Prof Burki, who has been tasked by PTI chairman Imran Khan to enforce the new law in hospitals, says they have devised a mechanism which will bring academic improvement in medical education and the medical colleges will get competent people. He said that head of departments would also be selected through merit-based criteria and those with higher qualification and research experience will get top positions.

Those with higher qualification, research experience to get top positions under the new law

Prof Burki said he had held meetings with the representatives of doctors who opposed the new system, but there was no serious problem that needed resolution because 13 amendments had already been incorporated by virtue of which the grievances had been met.

As opposed to the present system in which any senior-most among medical teachers is made principal of the medical college, the dean will now head the medical college for certain period. Currently, a person stays on principal’s post till retirement.

“The selection process of the medical teachers will be done by the academic council on the recommendation of a committee to be appointed at every institution. It will lead to selection of the best available professionals,” he said.

Prof Burki said that the four hospitals – including Khyber Teaching Hospital, Hayatabad Medical Complex and Lady Reading Hospital, Peshawar, and Ayub Teaching Hospital, Abbottabad – where the provincial government has enforced the law would produce medical graduates, specialist doctors and workforce for all medical technologies who would serve in the rural hospitals.

A 10-member board of governors has already been appointed for each of the hospitals, which would take input from their respective academic councils and other committees about academic as well as clinical affairs of their institutions. Associations of medical teachers, who are opposing the new law, want to work under the existing terms and conditions of the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PM&DC) for promotion. Under the new law, the rules of the Higher Education Commission would be applied to such matters.

A professor, however, told Dawn that there was a little difference between the HEC and PM&DC’s criteria for the promotion of teaching staff. For promotion of associate professor to the post of professor, HEC requires more research papers than the PM&DC. Both these institutions are working to narrow down this difference as well. He said that the responsibility to follow the promotion criteria had been given to the academic council of the medical teaching institutions.

He said that the post of dean and head of the department were academic-cum-administrative which were filled through open competition the world over. He said that the new law was aimed at introducing international standard in the medical education and expanding health services.

Pakistan is the only country in the world with the current system of selection and promotion in hospitals and consequently has poor performance in health care services.

The new reforms will enhance the standard of medical education with consequent improvement in health care services all over the province in the short term and all over the region in long term and these institutions will also achieve financial stability.

“Those opposing reforms have nothing in substance. They know the poor performance of our hospitals, but want to delay the reforms as long as possible for their vested interest,” sources said, adding that within the last on month, three groups of serving teaching staff had opened three private hospitals who might not care for improvement in the public sector hospitals.

Published in Dawn, November 15th, 2015

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