National Medical Commission

• 26 Sep 2020

Why in News

Recently, the National Medical Commission (NMC) has replaced the Medical Council of India (MCI), as per the gazette notification issued by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

• MCI was established in 1934 under the Indian Medical Council (IMC) Act, 1933 with the main function of establishing uniform standards of higher qualifications in medicine and recognition of medical qualifications in India and abroad.
• The old Act was repealed in 1956 and a new act was enacted in its place. The new act was further modified in 1964, 1993 and 2001.

Key Points

• The government dissolved the MCI in 2018 and replaced it with a Board of Governors (BoG), which was chaired by a member of NITI Aayog.
• Now, the IMC Act, 1956 stands repealed after the gazette notification, and has been replaced by The National Medical Commission Act that came into existence on 8^th August 2019.
• The change is aimed at bringing in reforms in the medical education sector and especially aimed at replacing the MCI, which was tainted by corruption and other problems.
• The NMC will function as the country’s top regulator of medical education.
• It will have four separate autonomous boards for:
  
  • Undergraduate medical education.
  • Postgraduate medical education.
  • Medical assessment and rating.
  • Ethics and medical registration.
• The common final year Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) examination will now be known as the National Exit Test (NEXT), according to the new medical education structure under the NMC.
  
  • NEXT will act as licentiate examination to practice medicine, the criteria for admission to postgraduate medical courses, and also for screening of foreign medical graduates.
• Besides, the National Eligibility and Entrance Test (NEET), NEXT will also be applicable to institutes of national importance such as all the All India Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in a bid to ensure a common standard in the medical education sector in the country.
  
  • NEET is conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA).
• Dr. Suresh Chandra Sharma, former head of ENT (Otorhinolaryngology, the study of diseases of the ear, nose, and throat) AIIMS Delhi, has been appointed as its chairman for three years.

Source: TH