Regulating the Medical Profession: Challenges and Possibilities in the National Medical Commission Bill 2017

Schedule of the Programme

Speaker: Dr Ritu Priya, Professor, CSMCH, JNU New Delhi

Chair: Professor Imrana Qadeer, Distinguished Professor, CSD New Delhi

Date: March 22, 2018 (Thursday)

Time: 3.00-4.30 PM

Venue: Durgabai Deshmukh Memorial Lecture Hall, CSD, Sangha Rachna, 53 Lodi Estate, New Delhi 110003

A Brief Introduction of the Talk

The National Medical Council Bill 2017 was tabled in Parliament on 28th December 2017 with the proposal to replace the Medical Council of India as the regulatory body for medical education and practice in the country. This was the response of the PMO-NITI Aayog committee formed after the Parliamentary Standing Committee for Health and Family Welfare, in its 92nd report, strongly indicted the functioning of the MCI and recommended a complete restructuring.   The Bill sets out various proposals with the aim of regulating quality of doctors produced as well as the ethics of their practice.  Its content has raised much contestation and a host of issues, such as what professionalism should mean and what forms of regulation, by whom, through what mechanisms, need to be considered in order to resolve them so that the restructuring that is sorely required can go through. This talk will attempt to frame the issues from the perspective of public interest and examine the Bill with that lens together with possible mechanisms that can balance the interests of the public and the medical fraternity.

A Brief Introduction of the Speaker

Dr. Ritu Priya is Professor at the Centre of Social Medicine & Community Health, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. A medical graduate with a doctorate in Community Health, her work links epidemiology, political economy, popular culture, and health systems research. It has been specifically focused on an eco-social epidemiological approach to urban health,health of marginalised groups, problems of nutrition and communicable diseases, and health systems development. She also works on inter-disciplinary research methodologies, health technology assessment and the ethics of public health. She has co-edited a volume titled ‘Dialogue on AIDS: Perspectives for the Indian Context’ and guest edited a special issue on Universal Access to Health Care of the Indian Journal of Public Health. She was Advisor, Public Health Planning under the National Rural Health Mission with the National Health Systems Resource Centre and is founding member of the Trans-disciplinary Research Cluster on Plural Health Care at Jawaharlal Nehru University.