Medical universities agree on single curriculum for postgraduate training

Rawalpindi:National medical universities of federal capital, Punjab, Sindh, and Baluchistan have agreed on one uniform standard curriculum for post-graduate training in the country that would be based on ACGME (Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education) model of USA and university residency program.

Vice Chancellor at Rawalpindi Medical University Professor Muhammad Umar informed ‘The News’ that this most modern curriculum is based on six competencies which include Patient care, Medical knowledge, Professionalism, Communication & Interpersonal skills, Practice based learning and System based practices.

The weightage of patient care, medical knowledge will be 40%, professionalism will be 30% and other two 20% are added combined with 7th competency which is Research; it will be given 10% weightage. The curriculum will shift the paradigm of post graduate medical education from exam oriented to training oriented. Specialist doctors will be trained continuously over four year and five year program and 75% weightage will be given to continuous internal assessment rather than examination, said Dr. Umar.

He said the continuous internal assessment will be formative assessment where trainee will be given continuous feedback to improve his/her training by the supervisor and Department of Medical Education of university. The clinical skills will be assessed by work place based assessment system for Directly Observed Procedures (DOPs) and case based discussions (CBDs). Year-wise four rotations will be assessed in the supervision of end of year composite Department of Medical Education appraisal.

Another method of professionalism training and assessment will be 360 degree multi source feedback. This assessment of trainer and supervisor will be done six monthly basis and will be given weightage in final summative assessment.

Professor Umar further added that the research model of university residency program is well structured, credible and spread over four or five years depending on the program. Every year trainee had to write paper in specific journal (Resident research journal) and published by resident’s editorial board which is unique in Pakistan. The trainee had to complete the mandatory workshops and during training will attend research lectures as specified in UK, USA training programs. There is well designed curriculum of research and logging system. There will be 10 per cent weightage of research in the final program.

According to Professor Umar, based on an ACGME (Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education) model, university residency program will remove all the deficiencies in 100 years old university based medical education and will be parallel with any other modern system in the world and will be accepted in Middle East.

There are six public universities in Punjab, one in KPK, one in Baluchistan and four to five in Sindh. Hopefully all will adopt the university residency program. There are two system of post graduate system education in Pakistan fellow ship program of CPSP and MD/MS program of universities and Royal College UK also established their examination system in Pakistan last year, he said.

With present modernization of new university residency program (MD/MS), doctors of university will have to adopt any of the three programs and had to complete and meet all modern international requirements which will boost the quality of post graduate medical education in Pakistan and will meet the need to produce more specialists which are grossly deficient, he said.

The meeting in this regard hosted by RMU in RMU was attended by Prof. Tanveer Khaliq VC Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto University Islamabad, Prof. Zafar Ali Chaudhry VC Faisalabad Medical University Faisalabad, Prof. Ijaz Masood VC Nishtar Medical University Multan, Prof Gulshan Ali Memon VC NawabShah Medical University, Prof. Naqeeb Ullah VC Baluchistan Medical University, Baluchistan and Prof. Zia ul Haq VC Khyber Medical University Peshawar.