The National Medical Commission (NMC) will be revising certain aspects of the new Competency-Based Medical Education (CBME) 2024 guidelines that were released on its official website a week ago.
The revised guidelines are expected to be released on the NMC website within two days, Dr Aruna V Vanikar, President, the Undergraduate Medical Education Board (UGMEB), NMC, informed EdexLive.
A week ago, on August 31, the NMC issued a set of new guidelines for the CBME curriculum for students pursuing MBBS in Indian medical colleges. As NMC stated, the CBME 2024 guidelines intend to make medical education more learner-centric, patient-centric, gender-sensitive, outcome-oriented, and environment-appropriate, thereby, conforming to global trends.
However, the new guidelines have faced criticism from the medical community, LGBTQ+ advocates, and disability activists. The guidelines categorise sodomy and lesbianism as “unnatural sexual offences” under the “sexual offences” section of the clinical forensic medicine course in the MBBS curriculum.
Other controversial matters included the reintroduction of topics like ‘virginity and hymen’, which were scrapped in 2022 on the orders of the Madras High Court.
Speaking to EdexLive, UGMEB President Dr Aruna V Vanikar said, “A few stakeholders and medical colleges have raised concerns about aspects of the new CBME guidelines, particularly the ‘sexual offences’ section. We have addressed these issues internally and will be implementing revisions. Updated guidelines are expected to be released within a day or two.”
CBME 2024: “Progressive and student-friendly”
The UGMEB president said that the new CBME 2024 guidelines have been drafted to make the undergraduate medical curriculum more progressive and student-friendly. These changes have been implemented in the MBBS curriculum in line with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.
“We have tried to make the curriculum as student-friendly as possible. For example, we have introduced learning and assessment in bilingual mode along with the English language. For this, we have introduced 12 Indian local languages including Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam and more,” explained Dr Vanikar.
The commission has also introduced remedial options for MBBS students to appear for university exams in cases of attendance shortage.
“Earlier, students needed to have at least 75 per cent attendance in theory classes and 80 per cent in practical classes in order to sit for university exams. Now, we have introduced remedial options for students, if they have over 60 per cent in each of the papers. This will ensure that students do not have to take a drop,” Dr Vanikar added.
