Medical professionals across the country held a brainstorming session on strengthening the healthcare system, students’ curriculum and learning patterns among other topics.

”To strengthen the healthcare delivery mechanism in both the rural and urban pockets of the country, more medical colleges should come up to tackle the shortage of doctors,” said Vijendra Kumar, Professor Pediatric surgery Member of UnderGraduate Curriculum Board, National Medical Commission.

Kumar stated this while addressing the 15th National Medical Commission Teachers Meet organised at AIIMS-Bhubaneswar on Monday.

Dr Aruna Vanekar, President UG Curriculum Board NMC highlighted the different changes in MBBS curriculum such as criteria for MBBS attendance, maximum numbers and years of attempts to complete the MBBS course and Internship.

The provision of mandatory thesis submission before Postgraduate final examination has been removed and included as part of final practical examination, she added.

Dr BN Gangadhar Padmashree chairman of the National Medical Commission emphasised on the role of doctors as social reformers.

Dr Gangadhar along with Dr Aruna Vanekar also interacted with Deans of all 17 medical colleges of the State.

They briefed about different health activities of National Medicos Organisation throughout the year in Northeast states, Kashmir and other parts of the country.

Dr Yogendar Malik, President Ethics and Regulation Board of NMC briefed about the different forum to address the Doctor’s grievances, and changes made in regulations to allow the foreign graduates to practice in India and uniformity in medical registration.

Professor Manas Ranjan Sahoo, Vice-Chancellor of Odisha University Health Sciences talked about the change in teaching learning pattern between previous and current generation students.

He also said the NMC’s approach to reach the Deans medical teachers in medical colleges of different states to brief about their ideas and taking feedback is a novel initiative to bring the desired changes in medical curricula.

Due to the joint endeavor of this nature by NMO and NMC, AIIMS Bhubaneswar and other institutes of national importance can play a crucial role, Sailesh Kumar President, AIIMS Bhubaneswar said.