The standard of teaching in some leading medical colleges including Dhaka Medical College is "extremely poor", say recent studies, but still the recommended training programmes for medical teachers remain far from implementation.
Nothing has been done so far to implement the suggestions by a high-level meeting that followed the study to Improve medical education in the country.
Recognising the need for immediate steps to produce 'quality doctors, the meeting held in May last year put forward a set of recommendations for reorientation of medical education as well as reorganisation of the existing resources.
It was strongly recommended that the project for "Further Improvement of Medical Colleges" (F1MC) should continue
as a programme in the Fifth Five Year Health and Population Sector Programme (HPSP).
FIMC, funded by UK's Department for International Development and the British Council, dealt extensively with standard of teaching at medical colleges. The project ended in June. No initiative has since been taken regarding regular overseas training for teachers and evaluation of medical courses.
"The recommendations are confined within the files. They have very little chance of being used as guides for developing medical education in the country," a senior health ministry official admitted.
A top official of the Centre for Medical Education (CME) confirmed the lack of initiative. "The need for training on teaching technology has not
been given any importance in HPSP.
"Medical education is a continuous process. Doctors assigned for healthcare services ought to be acquainted with the modern method of medical practice. Without building capacity in quality health care, now can we expect quality treatment?"
The government has allocated Tk 1.35 crore for overseas training of the doctors this fiscal while roughly Tk one crore has been allocated for research, surveys and local level training during the same period.
The government has completely ignored the need for fundamental requirement of the healthcare system — improving quality of medical education? said the CME official.
The meeting identified a number of commonly agreed problems and put forward a set of suggestions and possible solutions to further improve the ouality of medical education in the country.
Lack of quality control in medical education was the number one issue. Lack of communication, clinical and managerial skills of new graduates were also identified as major problems.
Also, most teachers were found not properly trained in medical education. Many of them also lacked commitment as teachers.
Some of the highlights of the Identified problems were:
* There is uncertainty about where the authority Ues in medical education. The principals of colleges lack management training. There is no Institute tn the country to provide effective training for medical teachers.
• The Centre for Medical Education. an ambitious body that already achieved remarkable success in bringing about some major changes in medical education. was functioning inade-
quately due to lack of resources and clear terms of reference.
* There Is no national curriculum body on medical education. Bangladesh Medical and Dental Council was found to be Inactive. There is no research on medical education Including course evaluation. The medical institutions lacked proper planning for staff development.
* The medical colleges lack adequate resources and suffer from shortage of teaching staff and logistics.
The high-level meeting suggested a national curriculum body to oversee curriculum development.
It was also recommended that the BMDC be strengthened, with new terms of reference, pointing out that CME has the authority to ensure quality control In both government and private medical colleges.
A national education council should be constituted to maintain standard of medical education, ft said. A multi-professional "quality assurance system" along with training on medical education for all disciplines was also suggested.