NEW DELHI: Madhya Pradesh may be the first state to roll out textbooks in Hindi for medical students, but medicine will soon be taught in the country in regional languages as well. The High Powered Committee for Promotion of Indian Languages under the Ministry of Education has already initiated dialogues with the National Medical Commission (NMC), state medical councils, medical universities and colleges and also doctors and professors, on preparing medical syllabus in Hindi and other regional languages, Chamu Krishna Shastry, the committee’s chairman, told this newspaper.
Shastry said that the Tamil Nadu Dr MGR Medical University Vice Chancellor, Dr Sudha Seshayyan M.S., has already started preparing a glossary on medical terms in Tamil. He added that Home Minister Amit Shah will release the country’s first MBBS syllabus in Hindi for students on October 16. Hopefully, other states will follow suit, he said.
“They (MP) have prepared textbooks for first-year MBBS students. They are working on preparing the rest of the medical course books. The main aim is to bring medical textbooks in Hindi and other regional languages,” Shastry added. While teaching in English will continue, students will have the option to study both in Hindi and their regional language.
The idea behind the initiative is that 90 per cent of patients don’t know English. “A large section of the students also come after having studied in their mother tongue, and all of a sudden, when they start medical education in English medium they find it difficult to comprehend medical language,” Shastry added.
“Students from rural areas would like to work in their hometowns or villages. So we will be able to create a workforce catering to rural healthcare facilities. The quality of the books won’t be compromised,” Shastry said.
However, the plan has drawn flak from the medical fraternity. Dr Rohan Krishnan, president, FAIMA Doctors Association, said that it will affect the students adversely. “Medical education needs to be at par with international guidelines and bodies,” he said, adding that students will get confused and the quality will fall.
Dr Furquan Ahmad, former joint secretary of Resident Doctors Association, RML, tweeted, “Teaching MBBS in Hindi is a regressive step. Hyper Nationalism is the root cause. Tomorrow, they will demand to launch it in Sanskrit, but what’s the point of writing English words in Devnagari script for political agenda? NMC is a complete failure.”
Dr Manish Jangra, FAIMA founding member, said doctors, after completion, will find themselves unfamiliar with guidelines and will have to depend on poor salaries.