University of Health Sciences has revised the over a decade old MBBS curriculum

Lahore

In the new curriculum, clinical training will be provided to students from the first day of medical school. The new modular and integrated curriculum will come into force in medical colleges across Punjab from 1.

The new modular curriculum was approved on Friday at a joint meeting of the UHS Academic Council and the Council for the Study of Medicine, which was chaired by Vice-Rector Professor Dr. Ahsan Waheed Rathore.

The meeting was attended by heads and faculty heads of affiliated medical faculties. Besides, UHS Registrar Professor Nadia Naseem and Controller of Examinations Professor Saqib Mehmood were also present on the occasion.

The new curriculum consists of 44 modules. Medical students will be taught 5,500 hours during the five-year program. In addition, 500 hours are reserved for independent study. In the evaluation, the weight of 80 points will be assigned to the university professional exams and 20 points to the internal performance evaluation by the respective universities.

Professionalism, ethics, research, leadership and information technology are the main features of the new curriculum. The disciplines of family medicine, public health and Minimum Service Delivery Standards (MSDS) set by the Punjab Health Care Commission have been incorporated into the new syllabus.

Director of medical education at UHS Dr. Khalid Rahim informed the members about the preparation of the new curriculum. Professor Ahsan Waheed Rathore said that college faculty will be trained to teach the new syllabus and for this purpose workshops will be organized for the faculty at 12 centers from February 27. He added that the main objective of the new curriculum is to produce world class “Seven Star Doctors”.

The UHS VC said the university remained committed to keeping pace with global trends in medical education. “Our undergraduate modular integrated curriculum ensures the acquisition of knowledge with relevance to its clinical application.

The new curriculum ensures timely clinical exposure through broad skill acquisition. It promises the yield of doctors who will be equipped with the competencies to handle professional challenges locally and globally,” he emphasized.

On this occasion, the members of both the statutory bodies congratulated the university for the long awaited initiative. Professor Rathore thanked the principals and said that there would be difficulties in implementing the modular and integrated curriculum; however, all colleges would take along.

The meeting also approved the abolition of the condition of evaluation of theses by a foreign opponent in MPhil and other master’s degree programs including MS, MD and MDS. It has been decided to adopt the Higher Education Commission (HEC) policy for Ph.D. thesis evaluation.

In this context, the members were informed that the university regulations prescribe the requirement of evaluation of research papers for foreign evaluators, except for domestic opponents.

However, the HEC rules and regulations did not stipulate such a condition for the Master’s degree. It has been said that the prescription intended to increase the quality of research results in certain problems, including the identification of foreign evaluators especially in clinical research fields, the availability of researchers from the developed world to evaluate theses, delays in the evaluation process of theses and the transfer of remuneration of foreign evaluators in view of recent strict regulatory restrictions.

In addition to the delay, the UHS caused a great financial burden of evaluations from foreign examiners, as each thesis was paid 200 USD for evaluation. Therefore, it was proposed to amend the regulations to the extent of waiving the requirement for evaluation of diploma theses by foreign evaluators in MPhil and other master’s degree programs.

Members also agreed that the university should offer postgraduate programs in medical fields only. Prof Rathore said that from the current academic session, no programs in non-medical field will be offered and the basic qualification for admission to the university’s postgraduate course will be MBBS or BDS. In addition, all BS programs that had no career prospects for students would also be abolished.

The meeting also approved re-centralization of MBBS and BDS practical exams. The UHS VC informed that many reforms have been made in the examination system and the senior faculty has been given the responsibility of monitoring the examinations. He directed the college principals to visit the centers during the examinations. – PUNA