MCI bans 27 doctors for professional misconduct
The Medical Council of India (MCI) has ordered the removal of 27 doctors from the Indian Medical Register, barring them from medical practice for three to five years. These doctors have been punished for indulging in corrupt practices violating MCI’s code of conduct.
The directions follow a CBI inquiry into the conduct of 35 doctors from all over India, reported The Indian Express. Two of the doctors were simultaneously serving as the faculty of two medical colleges. The other 25 had to bear the brunt for faking as full-time faculty of Melmaruvathur Adiparasakthi Institute of Medical Sciences in Melmaruvathur, Tamil Nadu, to help its management get MCI approval for different courses. These doctors are from Maharashtra, Odisha, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Kerala, while majority (10) out of the 25 hail from Maharashtra. Four out of these medical professionals are women.
MCI directives to State Medical Councilsinclude removal of the names of these doctors from the state medical registry and also from the Indian Medical Registry for two years each. For this period, the doctors won't be allowed to practice medicine. Such a decision to ban corrupt doctors should also serve as a warning for private medical colleges that rely on such doctors to make up for their acute shortage of faculty during the MCI inspection.
Earlier, doctors from government medical colleges were offered huge sum of money by corrupt private medical colleges to be present on the day of inspection. These doctors would fake as faculty members for a day at these private colleges. Depending on the specialization, the doctors would make a few lakh rupees a day. To check on this malpractice, the MCI made it mandatory for the faculty to give a written undertaking that the doctor was working with the hospital along with producing Form 16. Now private medical colleges rely on retired government medical college doctors.
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