The State Medical Councils across the country will jointly lobby for a major revamp of Medical Council of India Act to ensure more autonomy for the councils at the state level. In an attempt to bring in radical changes in the field of medical profession, the first ever meeting hosted by Delhi Medical Council and attended by majority of state medical councils which came to a close here on January 16, 2003 have passed 16 resolutions pertaining to registration of doctors, renewal of registration, anti-quackery movements, grievance redressal etc. The coordinated attempts of the medical councils are seen as the first move to arrest the growing public scrutiny against medical profession and also to enhance the quality of medical education in the country.

Speaking to Pharmabiz.com, Dr S K Khattri, registrar & secretary DMC said the quasi-judiciary nature of the councils is not sufficient to have a proper control over the medical profession in present day situations. "The existing MCI Act was designed at a time when there were 10 medical colleges in the country. Today we have 180 colleges spread across India and a centralized system of recognition of medical education institutions and monitoring is not at all advisable," he said.

The state councils are better placed to know the ground realities in their respective states. They can play a major role in ensuing quality medical education in their region. MCI, with a handful of medical inspectors, is grossly understaffed and ill equipped to take up the responsibility, he explained.

Dr S M Sapatnekar, administrator, Maharashtra Medical Council, also echoed the feeling and said that the state medical councils will ask for more powers to the central government. "Even MCI has agreed to our views. We need rules that provide enough teeth to state medical councils to handle the cases in a strict manner. In case of misconduct on the part of registered practitioners, our role is limited to suspension or cancellation of license. But what are we to do if these deterrents are not effective to check the miss-deeds of a handful of doctors? The entire medical profession is today blamed for the deeds of few miscreants. So we need policing power to handle such persons," he opined.

Dr Sapatnekar, who is among the leading spirits behind the grouping of all the councils wanted the government to introduce necessary policy frame work, laws and support resources to see that the black sheeps among medical profession are not allowed to go Scot free.

The doctors said that there should be no grey areas in the Law that can help unethical medical practices and quackery in the country.

The councils will also jointly call for state wise registration of doctors. They felt that the doctors should go for separate registration if they are to practice in some other state other than they have registered. "There should not be any direct registration with MCI also. No dual registration should be allowed. Registration should be strictly under the jurisdiction of respective states. We know our criminals better," they felt.

Compulsory renewal of registration every five years based on uniformly designed Continuing Medical Education programmes is another major suggestion put forth by the state medical councils.

The state medical councils have come down heavily against the increasing trend of negative media coverage. The doctors said that the councils will ask the Press Council of India to give strict instructions in this regard. "We don't need press trials and press convictions. The media should abide by its ethics while reporting about doctors' alleged involvement in criminal cases", Dr Sapatnekar said.

Twelve out of 17 councils attended the meeting. The states represented were Karnataka, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, West Bengal, Kerala, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Bihar and Punjab. Medical Council of India was the 12th council.

The councils are to forward their recommendations to the government after getting it ratified by all 17 councils. Prof Ranjit Roy Chaudhury, president, DMC was the brain behind the event.