KEMCA moot ends with debate on MDCAT, admissions

LAHORE: The 4th KEMCA (King Edward Medical College Alumni) Association UK’s annual universal health conference has concluded. The conference held every year is largely about health with a segment on education. This year the debate was on medical education in Pakistan. The first debate was on MDCAT and admissions.

Pakistan Medical Commission President (PMC) Dr Arshad Taqi and Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) President Dr Ashraf Nizami shared their perspectives on MDCAT which has been questioned ever since its introduction in 1998. The Pakistan Medical Association has been demanding testing of all students on the same ground.

“There are different curriculums in all the four provinces and 60 tests are conducted in 30 days. We are far from providing equal ground to students,” said Prof Ashraf Nizami. He told the audience that in India they conducted medical school entry test of 1.6 million students all over the country on one day with pen, pencil, at one time and in 16 languages.

“The standing committee on health made critical observations in a meeting. It declared MDCAT as not right and asked for rescheduling the exam and demanded it to be held the way the university (UHS) used to hold earlier with pen and pencil, at one time for all examinees,” he said.

The test cost Rs 500-600 only when the UHS held the entry test to medical colleges. Now the PMC is charging Rs 6,030 for MDCAT while the students’ confidence in the test has been shaken, Prof Nizami said.

“Before you test students you have to tell them about the content and how you will test them. This (MDCAT) is change for the sake of change and this is not acceptable,” Prof Nizami asserted.

“Unless we provide level-playing field to all the aspirants for medical education, the feeling of being tested unfairly and robbed of the opportunity to study medicine, won’t go,” Nizami said.Dr Arshad Taqi of PMC said, “We had not envisioned opposition to MDCAT. We give randomly allocated paper.” He defended this testing by giving example of viva which is different for everyone and said “tests will be improving next year” to which Mahmood Shaukat said, “You are doing it at the cost of 200,000 people.”

“Alam Sher Malik, another speaker from Malaysia, gave a presentation on ‘Medical Curriculum and whether we are in step with the world’. Asif Naqvi gave a presentation on ‘Private Medical Colleges’ while Mahmood Shaukat gave a talk on ‘Flexible Training, Practical Ideas for Pakistan’.