TN Medical Council Shocker: 48 of 59 emergency Medicine Specialists hold unrecognized PGs

Tamil Nadu: 48 of the 59 doctors registered with the state's council hold postgraduate degrees in emergency medicine, which are actually unrecognized degrees.This has left both the Medical Council of India(MCI) and Tamil Nadu Medical Council (TNMC) surprised; and they are now looking into the complaint registered in this regard.

Emergency Medicine Association, an organization of specialists in the discipline, filed the complaint, on the basis of information provided to it by the state council, after an application was filed by it, under the right to information.

The association's complaint raised the query about such registrations being allowed in other state councils.

The degrees these doctors hold are from Vinayaka Mission Medical College and Sree Ramachandra Medical College and Research Institute, which got letters of permission (LoPs) for a postgraduate course in emergency medicine, with two seats each in 2013 and 2012, respectively.

With a recognized postgraduate degree in this discipline before 2015 and 2016, an impossibility, it has been observed that 48 of these post-graduate degrees registered are from a period prior to 2015.

A recent report in TOI states that 20 of these 48 are from before 2009, the year emergency medicine got recognized as a postgraduate speciality in India by MCI.Dr Jayshree Mehta, MCI president told TOI that the complaint was with the relevant authorities for both scrutiny and verification before a further course of action was decided upon.

Vice-President, TNMC Dr. R V S Surendran confirmed that only degrees recognized by the MCI could be registered and added that the matter was being probed.

“These registrations happened long ago and we do not allow this anymore,” he informed the daily. However, all 48 unrecognized degrees have been registered in October, November and December 2017.

The list of 48 included names of several office-bearers of the Society for Emergency Medicine in India (SEMI), an organization known for running an unrecognized masters in emergency medicine program.

SEMI, however, claimed that it ran a mere certificate program and that it had never claimed to be a Medical Council recognized the program. SEMI’s board is predominantly run by doctors without MCI-recognised postgraduate emergency medicine degrees.

Faculty members are questioning the credibility of a regulated system of medical education, with the state councils going ahead and registering unrecognized degrees.They said hospitals employed specialists with registered degrees with the belief that the system of registration was trustworthy.