Arbitrary Reconstitution of National Board of Examination (NBE) raises skepticism among medical professionals

Ludhiana, June 27, 2016: Reconstitution of the National Board of Examination (NBE) arbitrarily at a time when the Parliamentary standing committee as well as the Apex court of India have questioned the functioning of the premier medical body the Medical Council, has raised skepticism over the motive of this reconstitution.
In a statement, the National Coalition for Medical Ethics said that the doubt increases because one of the members of the committee is the existing president of the MCI and two more members are its senior functionaries. There are some more members who are known to hold proximity to Ketan Desai the ousted president on the charges of corruption, the cases of which are still pending in some courts. Dr Desai is also known for his close relationship with some top personalities in the present government. The members also include top brass from the IMA as well. It is worth mentioning here that the Central IMA leaders have been ignoring the ethics and have been supporting the agencies like Kent RO and Dettol to promote their products which obviously cannot be without any financial transactions. These were partly stopped after few members of the Punjab Medical Council (PMC) raised objections to it. It is also known that the IMA had planned to hold its national executive meeting last year in Pattaya (Thailand). This too had to be cancelled after some senior functionaries of the IMA from Punjab raised objections about the venue. Unfortunately such persons are more vocal and also have a superiority in numbers in this newly constituted NBE. Appointing members to a body which has to conduct examinations for the medical professionals should be done through some accepted criteria. Pick and choose will only lower the prestige of the body and lower its credentials. It will give free hand to the persons of dubious character to take decisions. This seems to be a well thought of move by the government under the pressure of vested interests in the medical profession who apprehend that they might loose their power with the expected changes in the MCI. Therefore they seem to have manipulated their positions in the NBE. We appeal to the government to reconsider this.