ISLAMABAD-The Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) on Monday expressing concerns about performance of the Pakistan Medical Commission (PMC) said that instead of improving the medical education the body is continuously deteriorating it. 
A statement released said that PMA has been demanding for the last many years to strengthen PMDC as a democratic, autonomous, independent and transparent body to regulate medical education in the country but unfortunately in contrast to our demand government passed PMC and Medical Tribunal Act, in haste, through joint session of the Parliament on 16 September 2020.
It said that even before passing these acts, PMA had suggested the government to take all stakeholders on board and after proper discussion and consent of all the legislation should have taken place. 
The statement said that now PMC seems to be at mess and under bad governance. Instead of improving, the situation is continuously deteriorating and doctors and medical students are facing huge problems. Both the medical education and health delivery system are worsening.    
PMA said that after wasting precious time of six months of students, PMC conducted MDCAT Exam on 29th November 2020, in much unorganised way. It was full of flaws. In many cases names against roll numbers were written wrongly and many students who appeared in the exam were shown absent.
The statement said that students and parents are protesting against this exam. The syllabus of the test was changed and instead of previous syllabus, the test was taken from federal syllabus which created difficulties for the students of all provinces.
Due to the faults MDCAT result was once removed from the website. It was uploaded again but unfortunately instead of improvement it had many more mistakes. This all shows immaturity and inexperience at PMC.  
PMA said that this is very disappointing that provincial governments are showing their reservations over the results of MDCAT test. Due to this mess at PMC, the Sind Government has planned to form its own Sind Medical Commission; hence Punjab will also form Punjab Medical Commission. If this happens, it will be a big disaster for medical education in the country.  
PMA believes that there should be one regulatory body in the country to regulate medical education and that should be PMDC. If there are some faults with PMDC that should be removed. We demand from the government to consult provincial governments and all other stakeholders to restore PMDC. If the government’s attitude does not change, then it will be a disaster and provinces will have their own bodies.