In a bid to improve the standard of medical education in the country, the Medical Council of India (MCI) has instituted eight nodal centres covering roughly 30 medical colleges each to impart training to the doctors under a faculty development initiative of the MCI's newly-created academic cell.

Today, on Doctors' Day, the Christian Medical College and Hospital was instituted as one such nodal centre in the northern region.

The nodal centre was thrown open to the doctors of nearly 30 medical colleges who will be regularly trained as per the plan chalked out by the academic cell of MCI headquarters in New Delhi.

The nodal centre was inaugurated by Dr S S Gill, Vice-Chancellor of Baba Farid University of Health Science, Faridkot.

Apart from the doctors of medical colleges in Punjab, the nodal centre, the only one in the northern region, will cater to the doctors of various medical colleges of Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttrakhand, and also West Bengal.

"The MCI has identified and instituted eight nodal centres across the country which will train the trainers (faculty members) of roughly 30 medical colleges each," said Dr Baldev Singh Aulakh, professor and head of the department of urology and renal transplant at Dayanand Medical College and Hospital, who is one of the nine members of executive committee of MCI.

Dr Aulakh said the executive committee had decided to create eight nodal centres for faculty development in order to create high standards of medical education in the country. "We are going to give expert training in advanced courses and monitor the training provided by the medical colleges. The nodal centre will train some of the faculty members of each medical college who will further train other doctors at their respective colleges," he added.

... contd.