PMDC forms panel to evaluate new medical, dental colleges

Islamabad: The Pakistan Medical and Dental Council has constituted a committee to scrutinise the legal and financial matters and documentation of all new medical and dental colleges in the country.

The development came during a meeting here on Friday with PMDC president Prof Shabbir Lehri.The committee headed by the PMDC president and consisting of vice-president Prof Abid Z Farooqi, Dr Shafiqur Rehman, Dr Amir Hussain, Dr Muhammad Haroon and Dr Shafiqur Rehman will be responsible for checking legal and financial requirements for each new medical and dental college before the first comprehensive inspection after the new college are referred by the Ministry of National Health Services and Regulation for the purpose of recognition with the PMDC.

The PMDC has received applications of the following medical and dental colleges from the ministry: Avicenna Medical College (Dental Section) Lahore; HBS Medical and Dental College (Dental Section) Islamabad; Wapda Medical College Lahore; Al-Aleem Medical College Lahore; Hashmat Medical and Dental College Gujrat; Niazi Medical and Dental College Sargodha; CMH Kharian Medical College Kharian; Bilawal Medical College for Boys Jamshoro; HITEC Institute of Medical Science Dental College Taxila; Abwa Medical College Faisalabad; Swat Medical College Swat; Malakand Dental College, Matta Swat; Muhammad Medical college (Dental College) Mirpur Khas; Shahida Islam Medical Complex (Dental College) Lodhran; Abu Umara Medical and Dental college, Lahore;  Bahawalpur Medical and Dental College Bahawalpur; Watim Medical College Rawalpindi; Cantonment Board Institute of Medical Sciences Dental College Peshawar; Rashid Latif Dental College Lahore, and Jehlum Medical College Jehlum.

These new medical and dental college’s applications have been received to the PMDC and the details of these new 20 medical colleges have been forwarded to the committee for their perusal on the directions of the PMDC president.

PMDC acting registrar Dr Syed Azhar Ali Shah told reporters here that the committee was also requested to scrutinize the applications/documents of those colleges which have applied to the council for re-inspection/enhancement of their annual admissions.

He added that after the scrutiny the Committee will share their findings, conclusions, deficiency in the documents of all the above mentioned colleges. He added that only eligible colleges shall be called for presentation before the Executive Committee as per law.

The PMDC president said to ensure the utmost transparency in the process of recognition of medical and dental colleges, the committee would not receive any direct or advance application nor would the council entertain any application if received from the federal government after 30th June same year.

The council will inspect the institution by end of September same year and hold a session in the last week of October same year to decide the cases of recognition and shall forward that cases to the federal government for process of notification, as the case may be these time frames will also be applicable to recognized institution that are applying directly to the council for permission to increase the number of annual admission to the course.

He emphasised that the Council has made many strict impediments in the process of college registrations so that the best colleges could be recognized for the medical and dental education of Pakistan.