-The PMDC has not had an external auditor or internal auditor and has only relied on three audits undertaken by the AGPR in the last decade
ISLAMABAD: Taking strong notice of the long delay in granting graduate doctors their provisional licenses, the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) on Wednesday announced that doctors would be issued provisional licenses by March 29, so that they could start house jobs immediately.
The order was passed by the PMDC council in its 193rd meeting, wherein several other decisions to uplift the standards of the medical and dental education were also taken.
It is pertinent to mention here that the cases of provisional licenses of 100 students of Federal Medical and Dental College and Avicenna Medical and Dental College of session 2013-14 have been pending.
Further, to cater to the issue of admissions in the current academic year which had been delayed due to the new central induction programme, the council had in its previous meeting fixed a final deadline of March 31 for all universities responsible for admissions by central induction to complete the admissions process.
During the meeting, the council also constituted an admission board to be headed by the PMDC President Professor Dr Tariq Iqbal Bhutta with the mandate to supervise the completion of all remaining admissions from the April 1.
The council made it clear that this is a priority issue and the academic year of the students cannot be put under jeopardy and hence it is to be completed on a war footing within the first week of April.
The council also decided to undertake a detailed review of the current regulatory structure of inspection of existing and applying medical and dental colleges to not only bring it in line with best international practices and standards but also streamline the existing cumbersome process and consider the imposition of a review of standards of all colleges on a periodical basis to ensure the best quality of education for future doctors.
The council refused to accept requests by colleges for giving retrospective credit for students who had dropped out in the past as it was noted that the practice essentially regularised a college having violated the maximum permissible strength in the past which could not be allowed.
It requested the relevant committees to ensure that the students should not be penalised by way of stopping their registrations etc. while considering the cases of violations by any medical or dental college.
Further into the meeting, necessary directions to fast track all pending equivalence cases of postgraduate and additional qualifications and also the many disciplinary cases were also issued.
The council took serious notice of the fact that the PMDC has not had an external auditor or internal auditor and has only relied on three audits undertaken by the AGPR in the last decade and directed that the process of appointing external auditors and internal auditors to be initiated immediately.
Moreover, the council has constituted 13 council committees including the Finance and Audit Committee, Human Resource Committee, Journals Committee, Information Technology & System Committee, National Examination Board (NEB) Committee and International Coordination and Affiliation Committee, Medical Education Committee, Legal, Regulatory & Compliance Committee amongst others, besides approving the SOPs and TORs of each committee.
Talking to Pakistan Today, the PMDC spokesperson stated that Dr Waseem Hassan Hashmi has not been appointed as acting registrar, adding that a permanent registrar would be appointed on merit for which the necessary process including a public advertisement is in the process of being issued.