The Pakistan Medical Commission (PMC) was striving to improve healthcare education through the advancement of quality medical and dental education in the country.
According to PMC, the commission being a healthcare regulator is setting benchmarks in line with best global practices to ensure quality healthcare for every citizen.
It added, that the PMC changed the old, obsolete, and orthodox mode of the system which usually hampered the due processes, causing difficulties for students, doctors, and other stakeholders, and implemented a digital system that brought ease to all following and meeting the need of the hour. It added, the commission is determined to facilitate all stakeholders in the larger interest of the nation. In order to issue licenses to interested foreign graduates, PMC conducted National Licensing Examination twice so far.
The objective to conduct NLE for foreign graduates too is determined and to examine their academic and practical capability prior to issuing them with the license, it added.
PMC is not only working to improve the quality of healthcare standards but also working on the rights of the patients. A competent doctor can treat a patient well, it added. In these held two NLE exams for foreign graduates, nearly 2,344 students appeared, and out of those only 424 students could pass the NLE exam. The low passing percentage is merely due to the wrong selection of medical and dental colleges by the students chasing cheap foreign education, getting influenced by informal agents who directly are responsible for putting their educational carrier at stake for the sake of money, and going to non-verified, sub-standard educational institutes.
Based on the NLE results PMC investigated and learned that there are a number of foreign medical and dental colleges that offer courses and programs with bare to minimum necessary arrangements followed by marginally teaching up to the mark and just focusing on the theory instead of both theory and clinical experience as the practical clinical experience also holds an important and pivotal value.
It added, due to limited resources, hospitals, language barriers, and limited patients, and beds, students are mostly given their degree without a house job or without giving any practical clinical experience which is one of the main reasons for the low passing percentage of foreign graduates in the NLE exams. All those foreign graduates who complete their respective degrees with house jobs or practical clinical experience, pass the NLE exams quite easily. PMC is working tirelessly to facilitate the foreign graduates and devised multiple pathways for them so that they may not face any issues, it added. The commission said that on average 25 to 30 thousand students annually are willing to seek their education in foreign medical and dental colleges.
