The recent ‘Minimum Requirement for annual MBBS Admission Regulation, 2020’ has replaced the ‘Minimum Standard Requirements for Medical Colleges, 1999’ of the erstwhile Medical Council of India (MCI). It is a vital step towards making medical education affordable.
The new regulation will be applicable for established and to be established colleges. Moreover, the established medical colleges will be governed by relevant and existing regulation during the transition period.
The ministry said, “These allow optimization and flexibility in utilizing available resources, and harnessing modern educational technology tools to facilitate moving towards quality education, even when resources are relatively scarce.”
Change in Space
According to the new regulation, the requirement for ample land space for setting up a medical college and its affiliated teaching hospital is not necessary. As per the standard, all available teaching space will be shared within and with other departments. Moreover, all the teaching space should be digitally linked with each other and should enable e-learning.
Upgrading Skills
All the colleges need to sport well-equipped and skilled laboratory for training students. Under the new regulation, the size of the library, the number of books and journals have been reduced. Student counselling services will be mandatory due to the recognition of the increasing stress level.
Number of beds
With the well-equipped hospital, the new regulation also orders institutes to have 300 fully functional, multi-speciality beds within 2 years of the establishment of a new medical college. The beds will be installed in various departments of the teaching hospital and need to align with its annual student intakes. There will be a 10% reduction in teaching beds to cater to the needs of the undergraduate medical trainee.
The ministry said, “The human resource of teaching faculty has also been rationalized in the new regulation. Over and above the minimum prescribed faculty, provision for “visiting faculty” has been made to enhance the quality of training.”
Additional departments
The Department of Emergency Medicine and the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation has been integrated into the training of undergraduate medical students. The Department of Emergency Medicine will respond appropriately to emergencies like trauma. The Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation will fill the shoe for those who need comprehensive rehabilitative care.
Last month, the Medical Council of India, an apex regulator for medical education in India, was replaced by NMC.
The former head of the ENT department of the All India Institute of Medical Science, Prof. Suresh Chandra Sharma, has been appointed as the chairman of NMC.
