The National M.Sc Medical Teachers Association (NMMTA) has taken objection to the new norms issued under the Clinical Establishments (Central Government) rules for diagnostic laboratories as the norms deny them any role in clinical diagnostics, including signing the reports. Protesting, over hundreds of members of the NMMTA said that while many corporate hospitals and private diagnostic laboratories in the country have Medical M.Sc post-graduates interpreting and signing laboratory test reports, the new norms make it mandatory that all diagnostic laboratories have doctors (registered with Medical Council of India or State Medical Council) signing test reports.

There are around 60,000 pathology labs and 6,000 diagnostic centers in India. The implementation of these rules in Rajasthan and Jharkhand is making postgraduates jittery as they are likely to lose their jobs. The Union government enacted the Clinical Establishments (Registration and Regulation) Act, 2010, to register and regulate all clinical establishments. Subsequently, the National Council for Clinical Establishments was set up and the Clinical Establishments (Central Government) Rules were notified in 2012. While ten states and six Union Territories, except Delhi, adopted the rules, they are being implemented in Rajasthan and Jharkhand as of now.

Sridhar Rao, NMMTA president Said “NMMTA protests this unjust exclusion and demands that the National Council for Clinical Establishment modifies its guidelines to accommodate medical M.Sc degree (irrespective of Ph.D) as a qualification to interpret and sign diagnostic test reports in Microbiology and Biochemistry. Since medical M.Sc is included in the first schedule of Indian Medical Council Act, 1956, the health ministry is implored that medical M.Sc degree holders be registered in the central or state medical councils. Laboratory testing services are not the practice of medicine, therefore health ministry must not restrict the role of interpretation & signing laboratory reports to doctors only”.

“Students also learn about the physiological functions of body, the disease process and the various parameters in health and disease, which enable them to interpret the diagnostic tests,” Dr. Rao said, urging the government to set right the  anomaly.

Arjun Maitra, Secretary, National M.Sc. Medical Teachers’ Association said Medical M.Sc. is a postgraduate degree offered in medical colleges recognised by the MCI and awarded under the faculty of medicine by the university. “The students are also trained in all aspects of clinical diagnostics, including specimen collection, processing, quality control, and interpretation of results,” he said.

He added" Medical Council of India in 2005 has clarified that M.Sc. (Medical Biochemistry) with or without Ph.D is entitled to independently or solely sign a medical biochemistry report in a clinical laboratory and National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories has recognized M.Sc degree holders as signatories for laboratory reports".

National M.Sc Medical Teachers’ Association (NMMTA) is a registered association of persons possessing medical M.Sc degrees in the subjects of anatomy, biochemistry, physiology, pharmacology or microbiology obtained under the faculty of medicine from MCI-recognized medical colleges.

Medical M.Sc degrees holders have tested, interpreted and issued test reports with signatures all along. In medical colleges, they also impart training to postgraduate students in the principles of diagnostic biochemistry and microbiology. Having served and trained so long, now these persons stand to be kept out of the laboratory due to the arbitrary and discriminating guidelines of the CEA. If and when these guidelines are adopted by the states and enforced, hundreds of qualified microbiologists and biochemists with medical M.Sc degree would either lose their jobs or be humiliatingly kept away from diagnostic laboratories. By permitting the conduct of medical M.Sc courses, creating a qualified & trained workforce and then denying them the requisite roles, the government is doing gross injustice. It is due to the misplaced policies such as these that the brain-drain of medical scientists is an ongoing process.