LAHORE, Dec 15: College of Physicians and Surgeons Pakistan (CPSP) Vice-President Prof Dr Rashid Latif has said medical institutions are not imparting uniform training to the FCPS trainees.

He said there was a need that the respective recognized training units should utilize their available resources to upgrade facilities, including equipment and remove deficiencies to impart quality training to trainees.

Prof Latif was speaking to the FCPS-II obstetrics and gynaecology trainees at CPSP regional centre here on Wednesday. The CPSP had also conducted a training workshop for FCPS obstetrics/gynaecology training supervisors on Tuesday and urged them to improve facilities and impart quality training to their trainees for better performance in the CPSP examinations.

He said the endeavour to do specialization was an uphill task not only in Pakistan but the world over. He stressed that the trainees should also stay in touch with the CPSP to know the latest developments.

Referring to students' financial problems, Prof Latif said the college was not oblivious to their grievances and working to ensure that all trainees get stipend besides containing the expenses so that the amount of dues should not go out of the reach of students.

Later, CPSP councillor Prof Dr Farrukh Zaman said the college was interacting with the FCPS trainees and their supervisors to inform them about the standards of training, workload at respective training units and status of equipment.

He said the trainees at present were not coming up to the expectations of the CPSP examination standards, set at par with the international standards. He said that variable standards of training units, shortage of required facilities, lack of proper supervision by supervisors and lack of interaction were the major reasons behind the very high failure rate of FCPS-II trainees.

To ensure that each trainee get proper workload and attention of the supervisor, Prof Zaman said the CPSP had fixed the upper limit of eight trainees for each supervisor in the country. He said the college had laid down the criteria that at least 2.5 beds should be allocated to each FCPS-II trainee.

He said the college had also requested the supervisors to follow the laid down guidelines to provide uniform training facilities and impart quality knowledge and skill to their trainees.