ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Association of Pathologists (PAP) has rejected the Pakistan Medical Commission’s (PMC) decision to allow non-medical teachers to teach at medical and dental colleges.

PAP President Dr Ashok Kumar Tanwani told Dawn: “Doctors are prepared to treat human beings so only those persons can train the student who have cleared Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) or Bachelor of Dental Surgery (BDS). Unfortunately the PMC has been taking such steps to facilitate private medical and dental colleges.”

He claimed that the decision would make private medical and dental colleges exploit MBBS teachers as non-medical instructors would be ready to teach for half the salary.

“I have served for 33 years at Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) and now, after retirement, have been teaching at a private medical college. However now teachers having non-medical backgrounds will be allowed to teach as well,” Dr Tanwani said.

Non-medical teachers would be ready to work at half the salary of MBBS teachers, association’s president says

A letter from the PAP to the PMC said that the commission was constituted to establish a uniform minimum standard of basic and higher medical education and training and recognition of qualifications in medicine and dentistry. However, the letter said, the current council has taken decisions contradicting their main philosophy, which will adversely affect private and public sector institutions.

The letter said: “The present council has abolished the requirement of MBBS and BDS for teaching basic sciences in the medical and dental colleges and non-medics without the medical background can be hired for teaching at medical institutions regardless of their qualifications and teaching experience.”

“Each country should implement the principles of medical education in view of the cultural, socioeconomic and academic norms prevalent in that country rather than blindly following the west. Firstly, in the Western countries the non-medic teachers are not core faculty of the medical schools, rather they are visiting faculty coming from their respective university department and teach very specific topics such as genetics, or molecular biology not in core subjects (basic medical sciences e.g., anatomy, physiology, pathology etc.) taught in medical schools,” the letter went on.

“The newly introduced concept of integrated modular curriculum emphasizes upon clinical integration right from first year onwards. A teacher who has a basic MBBS or BDS degree can only integrate the basic principles of the basic sciences with the clinical scenarios.”

Dr Tanwani said: “Every professional degree requires its own professionals to teach. Medical microbiology, medical pharmacology, medical biochemistry, medical pathology, medical physiology and medical anatomy are different subjects from e.g. plant physiology or for that matter animal physiology. As an example, a [doctor of veterinary medicine] does not study human basic sciences, how will they teach human basic sciences?”

He added that the dearth of basic medical science teachers five years ago has reduced significantly, and any persisting shortage should be addressed by providing job opportunities to medics with postgraduate basic medical science qualifications who are unemployed.

“More postgraduate training institutes should be regularised with scholarship opportunities and more medics should be enrolled for postgraduate studies,” he said.

“Non-medical teachers or even medics who have done post-graduation from non-medical institutes or under the supervision of non-medical supervisors do not have any clinical exposure to patients in hospitals or clinics. Therefore, they will have limited knowledge about clinical application,” he said.

PMC President Dr Arshad Taqi said that PhDs used to be allowed to teach in medical and dental colleges until they were stopped by the now dissolved Pakistan Medical and Dental Council.

“A number of medical colleges and universities such as Aga Khan University and Shifa International have PhDs and they want to retain them as faculty members. Recently Khyber Medical College asked us that if it can retain PhDs. We held a detailed discussion and there was difference of opinion but finally it was decided to allow the colleges to retain the teachers,” he said.

“We know that non-medics cannot teach every subject so a criterion will be devised and a cap will also be imposed so that colleges do not only hire teachers with a non medical background. Our objective is to improve the standards of teaching rather than worsen them,” Dr Taqi said.

Published in Dawn, January 23rd, 2020