Continuous learning in medical profession should be made mandatory!
A couple of days back, one of my colleagues went to Delhi’s one of the best nursing homes to consult a physician for his ulcer problem. The doctor during consultancy told him that ulcers are not curable and there is no permanent solution. However he was not very convinced and did a Google search and found that in 2004 two scientists were awarded Nobel Prize for their breakthrough solution for this so-called incurable disease. The moot point here is not that how the doctors are ill-informed but about the very mechanism that keeps or rather shall I say, forces the docs to keep themselves updated.
Today, after completing their MBBS (or MD), most of the doctors rarely go back to books for updating their knowledge base. Most of the doctors in India are still relying on medicines and treatment they came across during their initial days of practice! Thus, the new discoveries and health research that are changing the very DNA of medicine and medical treatment are kept alien to the Indian masses. Conventionally, Indian doctors bank upon the medical representative and the brochures that they carry (again self-advertised) as source of information. I’ve come across several occasions wherein doctors directly pick up these brochures and pen down medicines without referring back to medicinal developments that are taking place around the world.
Medicine is one of those professions where the society believes that the person at the giving end would always uphold his professional competency and would serve his customers with best of treatment available. Given the pace of scientific research and breakthrough happening, it is impossible for a doctor to remain proficient without undergoing a comprehensive and regular training module. Keeping this concept in mind, the Medical Council of India has proposed a bill to make continuous medical learning compulsory in India, but the law makers are yet to give it a nod. In the same light, Society for Academic Continuing Medical Education ensures that such facility is extended to medical practitioners in the West and UK and some parts of Europe. Many states in the US have made it mandatory for medical practitioners to attend continuous medical education programs in order to keep practicing and maintain their licenses. The duration of the program varies from 40 hours to 60 hours and needs to be attended every 2-4 years. The old breed of doctors, who understand diseases and symptoms within seconds, all thanks to their years of experience, end up suggesting decade-old treatments rather than exposing Indian masses to the latest state-of-art health care updates!
Given the fact that agencies across the world are investing millions in such researches, keeping masses bereft of these developments is nothing less than a crime. Medical fraternity and the health ministry should make continuous medical examination compulsory (every 3 years or so) and organise medical seminars across India every six months. Doctors who skip these exams should be legally and professionally prosecuted as well! This is more important in case of India, where majority of patients are suffering from diseases that are highly contagious and few of them have even been eradicated from the other parts of the world. Thus, continuous learning becomes more important for these strata of docs who serve this pocket of population, so that these patients can receive best available treatment and not remain a carrier of inflections for long!
A couple of days back, one of my colleagues went to Delhi’s one of the best nursing homes to consult a physician for his ulcer problem. The doctor during consultancy told him that ulcers are not curable and there is no permanent solution. However he was not very convinced and did a Google search and found that in 2004 two scientists were awarded Nobel Prize for their breakthrough solution for this so-called incurable disease. The moot point here is not that how the doctors are ill-informed but about the very mechanism that keeps or rather shall I say, forces the docs to keep themselves updated.
Today, after completing their MBBS (or MD), most of the doctors rarely go back to books for updating their knowledge base. Most of the doctors in India are still relying on medicines and treatment they came across during their initial days of practice! Thus, the new discoveries and health research that are changing the very DNA of medicine and medical treatment are kept alien to the Indian masses. Conventionally, Indian doctors bank upon the medical representative and the brochures that they carry (again self-advertised) as source of information. I’ve come across several occasions wherein doctors directly pick up these brochures and pen down medicines without referring back to medicinal developments that are taking place around the world.
Medicine is one of those professions where the society believes that the person at the giving end would always uphold his professional competency and would serve his customers with best of treatment available. Given the pace of scientific research and breakthrough happening, it is impossible for a doctor to remain proficient without undergoing a comprehensive and regular training module. Keeping this concept in mind, the Medical Council of India has proposed a bill to make continuous medical learning compulsory in India, but the law makers are yet to give it a nod. In the same light, Society for Academic Continuing Medical Education ensures that such facility is extended to medical practitioners in the West and UK and some parts of Europe. Many states in the US have made it mandatory for medical practitioners to attend continuous medical education programs in order to keep practicing and maintain their licenses. The duration of the program varies from 40 hours to 60 hours and needs to be attended every 2-4 years. The old breed of doctors, who understand diseases and symptoms within seconds, all thanks to their years of experience, end up suggesting decade-old treatments rather than exposing Indian masses to the latest state-of-art health care updates!
Given the fact that agencies across the world are investing millions in such researches, keeping masses bereft of these developments is nothing less than a crime. Medical fraternity and the health ministry should make continuous medical examination compulsory (every 3 years or so) and organise medical seminars across India every six months. Doctors who skip these exams should be legally and professionally prosecuted as well! This is more important in case of India, where majority of patients are suffering from diseases that are highly contagious and few of them have even been eradicated from the other parts of the world. Thus, continuous learning becomes more important for these strata of docs who serve this pocket of population, so that these patients can receive best available treatment and not remain a carrier of inflections for long!
A Timely note is this, It is really sad to note that our doctors are satisfied with what they learned in the study course or practice time, and now there is no time for them to check up and find out the latest developments in their own work area this is a sad state of our majority of doctors, they just prescribe or do their routine job, I fully appreciate the writer to make note of it for the readers here, I fully agree with the last para,
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