IMA opposes mandatory inclusion of Ayush medicine as an elective in MBBS internship

The Indian Medical Association (IMA) wrote to the National Medical Commission (NCM) on Thursday against the mandatory one week elective posting in any one of the Ayush medicine.

The letter written on July 15 states that "observations on draft regulation for compulsory Rotating Internship 2021 placed into the public domain for opinion by National Medical Commission, New Delhi". The IMA wrote, "IMA fully opposes the inclusion of one week exclusive elective posting which is contrary to the established norm superfluous and an attempt to initiate 'myxopathy'. IMA strives for purity of profession." An MBBS graduate after four years of education has to undergo one year of internship.

Dr Jayalal President of IMA said, "The internship is a period where doctors practice what they have learned under mentorship of seniors. The NMC has published a draft of the internship procedure last week in which they have put one-week mandatory posting in any one of the Ayush department."

"Internship is a period of what you have learned will be practiced since medical graduates have no options of learning Ayush in the undergraduate period it is not appropriate for him to come and practice in Ayush. IMA wants the purity of the system to be maintained and not mixing up," Dr Jayalal said. The IMA said there are many other branches such as family medicine, bioethics and these things should be included than taking one week exclusively for another system. "We hope NMC will take it in a positive sense and appropriate corrections will be done," said Dr Jayalal. Draft regulation for Compulsory Rotating Internship, 2021, released by the NMC has mentioned that a week's training should be included in the rotational schedule as an elective in any of the Indian systems of medicine