[bhawana]

The life as a medico is full of labor but quite enjoyable in the sense that there is nothing except a zest to gain knowledge. A medico has a belief that one can do well when one has sound knowledge. The five years of study slips without making them aware of the situation they need to face in the professional life. This is truer for the ones who have no one in family related to the same profession. They come with confidence, with expectations in the field as a doctor. As a professional, their journey starts from internship or pre-internship. Here they get to know the rules n regulations of the council, its ever changing nature and its existing unknown exceptions for some. The struggle for doing internship or pre-internship after one has completed the years of study, cleared the exit exam is really out of understanding. If the point is to maintain the quality by controlling in these steps, its bullshit for a common man and traumatizing and frustrating for the medicos.

It’s the fact that medical profession is not a joke; it’s not like any other as it deals with the life of people. Everyone agrees there needs to be control to maintain a standard. But there are ways, it should not be done whenever one/body likes. It should control from the beginning i.e. the number of colleges and should ensure that they are providing the standard education. The inspection of university or council takes place, but do we know how fairly it occurs? How the seats are increased in the medical colleges without ensuring the quality of study? Etc...

It is really good that the council is conducting licensing exam for last few years esp. in order to check the ones graduating from other countries. But doesn’t it need to check it when they go for it, before they have spent years of valuable time out of country? Apart from the scholarships or cultural seats from ministry, the other self finance programs need to be checked. The private agencies that are sending students out of country needs to be authenticated. They should be in the eyes of the council. Every aspect of the program, its quality, the university and its recognition status, the medium of study, the provision of training in own university needs to go through a perusal from the body of Nepal Medical Council. The student need to be secured of the quality of medical study out of country before getting No Objection Letter from the Ministry so that he/she doesn’t repent it after coming back to Nepal.

These days the burning issue has become that of internship and pre-internship. The only thing true about is that the core idea of this training is to further develop clinical skills and to be familiar with the practical aspects of management of the patients with the theoretical knowledge in mind. It doesn’t matter for a medico where one does the training program provided the institution is good. But it does matter for the council, and is a serious issue as every body wants to go to the better area. But what would the student do when they discover that their internship period would go without sharpening their skills. Then it is obvious to seek for the better place. So the council has to look for this aspect of training in the colleges and ensure that the student gets good exposure before emphasizing the compulsion of doing in the same college one has studied. Moreover there are so many loopholes in the rules in regulations and inadequacy of the guidelines of council regarding internship which need to be addressed. I guess there are no any guidelines for pre-internship. It’s the irresponsible attitude of council to entangle medicos in paper works and to keep them roaming here and there wasting their valuable time. The ever changing rules, though existing only for the ones who don’t speak against that, make the matter worse for the aspiring doctors. The present scenario speaks for the same. Res Ipsa Loquitur, the fact speaks for itself. The same condition applies here; the chaos is created because of the lack of intervention from body of council itself in time.

Anyways, there should always be the place for hope. Hope that this chaos would end into something acceptable. May we be more optimistic and the controlling body more responsible in future.