Medical teachers and postgraduate students of public hospitals in the city joined hands on Saturday to protest against the changes proposed by the Medical Council of India (MCI) in the MBBS curriculum. Their main contention is that many important subjects, which were earlier mandatory, have now been either made optional or included on the elective list. The proposed document Vision 2015 for under-graduate medical education states that 78 subjects, including forensic medicine and toxicology, ENT, ophthalmology, dermatology, orthopaedics, radiology and psychiatry, will be optional for students or can be treated as electives to be taught in the second or third year of the graduation course. While, teachers of other streams from most of these streams are still discussing the repercussions of the change, those from the forensic medicine department have come out in strong protest. They are particularly angry with the MCI''s plan to teach the subject in bits and pieces along with other streams such gynaecology and obstetrics, surgery or pharmacology rather than a complete subject. They feel that this change will make the already poor state of medico-legal cases in India worse. According to Dr S D Nanandkar, head of the forensic medicine department of J J Hospital, India needs at least 6,000 experts and so far, only 20% of the dfemand has been fulfilled. Currently, cases of rape, assault, injuries and suicide are mainly handled by regular MBBS graduates as there is a huge dearth of forensic experts. Dr Shailesh Mohite, head of forensic medicine department at BYL Nair Hospital, said, "The shortage will worsen as not many students would want to specialise in a subject that is optional." In the existing curriculum, forensic medicine is taught in the second year of the MBBS course. Mohite also argued that most medico-legal cases are referred to the government hospitals for examination and treatment, and so, the MCI cannot suggest the "weakening of the subject". In the existing curriculum, forensic medicine is taught in the second year of the MBBS course and it deals with collecting essential evidences and conducting post mortems. Resident doctors of both civic and state hospitals have decided to hold meetings to decide on the proposed curriculum. "The MCI had given only three weeks to deliberate on the changes and suggest feedbacks," said Dr Farhan Ahmed, general secretary of Nair Hospital''s Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors (MARD). "We also have doubts about many statistical data that MCI has used to say there is dearth of medical teachers in certain streams," he said adding that the aspiring doctors from across the country will join hands to protest the irrelevant changes. Also, Nanandkar said that the existing Board of Governors at the MCI are names and therefore not eligible to suggest such radical changes to the MBBS curriculum. Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com