The National Medical Commission is reviewing the disability guidelines for admission to medicine courses to shift the emphasis to whether individuals can perform the required competencies rather than what percentage of disability they have. This comes after Supreme Court directed that guidelines be reviewed to assess what such candidates can do rather than what they can’t.
The panel framing the guidelines has accordingly decided to rename Disability Assessment Boards as Ability Assessment Boards. The minutes of the meet framing the new guidelines submitted in court revealed it would be attempting “to define which medical competencies are essential and non-negotiable for safe medical practice”.
Candidates with disability challenge NMC’s guidelines
Over the years, several candidates with disability have successfully challenged NMC’s disability guidelines, based on which they were barred from joining for an MBBS course after clearing the national entrance examination. In the case of one such candidate, who reached Supreme Court seeking justice, the court had ordered a review of the guidelines which shall “eschew from a benchmark model to test the functional competence of medical aspirants with disability” in keeping with “contemporary advancements in disability justice”.
“From promoting self-rejection of disabled medical aspirants to assuming that their accommodations would lower the standard of competence and would regardless be fruitless – the guidelines have charted their way into disrepute,” stated SC in its Oct 2024 order.
Last month, NMC constituted a seven-member committee to review the disability guidelines published on May 14, 2015, by the erstwhile Medical Council of India. Three members of the new committee were a part of the committee that framed the 2019 guidelines. Two of them, Dr Sanjay Wadhwa (Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation) and Dr Rajesh Sagar (psychiatry), both from AIIMS Delhi, have been members of all four committees so far that have worked on framing disability guidelines. Dr Achal Gulati (Ear, Nose Throat-ENT) from Maulana Azad Medical College, who heads the latest committee, was in three of these four committees. Three committees constituted earlier were dominated by doctors from AIIMS, Delhi. In the new seven-member committee, only three are from AIIMS.
“AIIMS doesn’t come under the NMC and so it is yet to revise its curriculum to align with the Competency-Based Medical Education curriculum of the NMC which was revised and issued in Sept last year. When AIIMS doesn’t even follow a competency-based framework, how can it frame competency-based guidelines for NMC institutions? The same people have been inducted into the committee when the guidelines they framed have been repeatedly challenged and found problematic. They will be reviewing their own guidelines. Aren’t there any experts in the whole country barring AIIMS?” asked Dr Satendra Singh, a disability rights activist and faculty in University College of Medical Sciences, Delhi.
