Unrecognised courses not to be registered: PMDC

ISLAMABAD:The Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) has said it doesn’t register the postgraduate qualifications, which are not recognised in line with Section 16 of the PMDC Ordinance, 1962 and Amendment Act.

“Under the law, we can register only those qualifications as additional postgraduate qualifications, which are included in the Third Schedule of the PMDC Ordinance1962 and Amendment Act 2012 after due process as per PMDC Postgraduate Regulations. Therefore, the candidates for postgraduate qualifications should check with the PMDC before enrolment if the programmes they’re interested in are recognised,” PMDC registrar Dr Raja Amjad Mehmood told ‘The News’ on Wednesday.

The PMDC registrar warned admitting students for or advertising admissions in any unrecognised postgraduate course would be a clear violation of the PMDC Ordinance 1962 as well as the Supreme Court judgment i.e. PLD 2007 SC 323 and that such move would have penal consequences.

He said the PMDC didn’t register unrecognised qualifications nor did it register students enrolled in such programmes.

Dr Raja Amjad said postgraduate courses in medical and dentistry needed to be fulltime ones in compliance with the Gazette of Pakistan Postgraduate Medical Education Regulations, 2010.

He said the College of Physicians and Surgeons had issued too many FCPS degrees without examination, which was creating problems for PMDC in registration of such degrees.

The PMDC registrar said under the Islamabad High court judgment, the medical training site had to be recognised by the PMDC and that CPSP would recommend and forward it to the PMDC immediately after fulfilling formalities to attain the status of postgraduate training site.

“According to the judgment, lapses have occurred due to the negligence on the part of the CPSP as accreditation was granted for conducting training courses in FCPS and MCPS without examining if the said institutions has got prior recognition from the PMDC or not,” he said.

Dr. Raja Amjad said previously, the council had given amnesty to holders of such unrecognised qualifications and asked the relevant institutes to get their programmes recognised.

He said repeated warnings were issued to the CPSP many times not to issue degrees until recognition of their programmes concerned.

“The last warning in this regard was issued in 2011 to the CPSP, while a six months cut-off time was also granted to them afterwards,” he said.

Also, the PMDC registrar said the Khyber Medical College, Peshawar was inspected on May 5, 1997 for recognition of M Phil programmes and that the council decided that the programmes would be recognised provisionally for two years.

“Later when the KMC was affiliated with the KMU, postgraduate courses of the KMC continued with the University of Peshawar and the KMU got its postgraduate courses recognised by the PMDC. However, the KMC continued courses with the University of Peshawar that were not recognised by the PMDC. The candidates were registered in the past in line with the decisions of the council but after last warning and after ......

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