Need reforms in medical education

The recent controversy on the efforts made by the Medical Council of India and the government of India to bring transparency in medical education highlights the urgent need for reforms in this area.

The present system of medical education does not assure the option to re-total marks or call for re-examination when doubts are raised about the quality of assessment.

Further, students who report unfair practices in assessment during a university examination for a medical degree have no avenues of redress, which compounds their agony as their future is harmed. A newspaper recently reported on a re-examination at the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS) in Karnataka for a single student. This was a practical examination in oral medicine and radiology for the final year in the Bachelor in Dental Surgery programme. The Chancellor of RGUHS made a landmark decision in the history of medical education by conducting the re-examination after consulting experts who judged that the examination was improperly assessed. Other medical universities should consider amending their rules for conducting medical examinations. They should provide students opportunities for reexamination if they can demonstrate that their examinations had been unfairly assessed.