PRESIDENT Arif Alvi has done a great service to the field of medicine in Pakistan by abolishing the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC). This organisation had been inept to the core for a very long time and is responsible for the pathetic state of medical education affairs and healthcare.

Most medical colleges are good and I would say excellent in their curricula and thus produce brilliant and competent doctors. But, unfortunately, there are several others that have mushroomed all over the country and are sub-standard by any national or international standards. They pose a grave danger to society. Doctors from these medical ‘mills’ are inept and incompetent, and pose a danger to the healthcare delivery.

Besides the scrutiny that should be for every medical college with an impartial commission, as hopefully the new Pakistan Medical Council (PMC) will do, it should also establish strict controls on hospitals and medical practitioners and also audit pharmaceutical companies.

The PMC should be an independent body to establish and implement strict accreditation criteria and its members should be men and women of impeccable credentials without any political bias.

Any hospital or medical clinic not meeting these criteria should be shut down immediately. Medicine is not a calling anymore. Sadly, it is a big business enterprise and conglomerate all over the world. But standards of excellence must never be compromised.

Dr Nasir Ahmad
Karachi

Published in Dawn, November 8th, 2019