This noble profession has lost its sheen and appeal as a career path of choice for India’s brightest students. We need to analyse and understand the reasons for this decline
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The number of students writing NEET is skyrocketing every year, while those appearing for engineering exams like JEE continue to decline. This is despite the fact that there are far fewer medical seats than engineering, and the scope of engineering is much broader.
At this point, it is more than twice as many medical aspirants compared to engineering.
What is the basis for saying that the best and brightest no longer opt for medicine? The view is not a reflection of reality.
I squarely support Dilip Gogoi’s and Shekhar G’s observations about medicine. The medical field does need a high degree of intelligence, but that is nowhere near the IQ required to be a good mathematician or physicist or computer scientist or an economist.
The best and brightest students must opt for careers in maths, physics, statistics, computer science, economics, etc.
Medical science can be left to the next rung of students – thise who are very intelligent and more importantly very disciplined and hardworking. The medical field does involve rote learning and cramming in a massive way and no high-IQ student will ever enjoy that.
My personal experience:
A cousin who was tremendously brilliant had even represented India in the International Maths Olympiad. But was continuously pressured by his parents to opt for medicine because his father happens to be a doctor. Quite obviously, he secured high marks and got admission into Calcutta Medical College. Just a year in and he left the course. Said it does not do justice to his talents. Just rote learning day in and day out. Got admission into the prestigious Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), completed MSc from TIFR and is doing PhD now from MIT Boston.
This is what truly brilliant students with exceptional IQ yearn for. Medical science can safely be left to the second rung of students.
Dr.Talwar makes great points. Lack of prestige, Cost of education, Length of education, Medico legal Challenges, physical violence, Defensive practice, low salaries and accepting referral pays are all practical troubles that face the profession and obviously inter related. Some of these things cannot be reversed as the proverbial train has left the station.
However there is a lot that can be done. Infact the one way to fix the entire system is to make Government Hospitals and Medical Colleges better. It is a tall ask, but it can be started by forming these centers of excellence within these institutions where staff can be incentivized to work better by paying them 4 or 5 times the prevailing government wages.
If Government hospitals can put out clean, competent, cheap, timely and accountable care then lot of the issues plauging the system will wither away. Private hospitals and corporates will self correct, referral pay acceptance will drop, dedicated people will join Medicine etc etc..
But the business of Medicine will suffer and hence those stakeholders will not let this happen. Unfortunately the political will that is needed for such an endeavor will be compromised due to these special interests.
In the end just like a people get a Government they deserve, they will also get a Healthcare system they deserve. It will only be a mere reflection of themselves.
It think you have never met a doctor in your life. Do you know what it takes to be doctor? Are you aware of any cognitive skills like critical reasoning, decision making, observation and of course empathy.
You think one acquires these by rote learning. The very concept of IQ has been outdated now on the basis of which you are passing judgement about professions and demeaning them.
If top-students have opted for medicine, it’s just because of the social prestige a doctor enjoys in our society. Medicine is a profession for rote-learners. It’s meant for people who are good at cramming – it hardly requires a high IQ person.
If a student is indeed intelligent and harbours great ambitions he must choose subjects like maths or physics ir computer science. These subjects require a very high IQ and there is negligible rote learning involved.
Medicine is a profession which requires great analytical ability and high IQ as well as as EQ. In emergency as well as day -to-day clinical practice, you need to diagnose the disease correctly and administer the treatment as per guidelines directed recommended therapy. A symptom like chest pain / fever can have several differential or multiple diagnosis, and therefore, one needs to have high analytical ability to rule out other diseases and rule in the correct diagnosis with high precision. So, i disagree with your point that Medicine attracts / needs rote learners.
The points raised by Prof Kk Talwar in this article are absolutely correct. Mushrooming of sub-standard private colleges in 90s were responsible for degradation in medical education.
The points raised by Dr Talwar are very relevant. His analysis for the deterioration of the profession are spot on.
The solution lies in growing community owned medical schools funded by tax resources where fees are realistic, every student is entitled to sufficient educational loan. The loans must be paid back by a 5 year service at community medical establishments like primary care centres & secondary care centres. To enable this these fresh graduates must be paid salaries which must t be adequate eg. 25 % to repay the loans and 75 % to afford them decent living. A similar model can be rolled out to finance those who wish to pursue specialisation. This time they commit to 3 to 5 yrs providing service at secondary and tertiary care centres and also faculty positions in teaching institutions. After providing this mandatory pay back to the system they may be offered hybrid contracts where they can opt to work within the public system for variable hours & also do private work at private medical centres. This will also help to break the monopoly of the corporate health care establishments which impose unfair monopoly over the rights of medical practitioners.
Finally, the folly of bringing medical practice under the Consumer Protection Bill must be corrected. Good, ethical medical education will create a pool of competent, ethical practitioners and the black sheep can be disciplined by the Medical Council. Defensive medical practice to avoid litigation is something what a poor country like India can ill afford..
Great read. Thanks for a systematic dissection of the problems.
However, if we also not include the failure of the beauracry to safeguard and implement the checks and balances within the system of medical education, we will be failing to address one more fundamental issue as a part of a systems thinking approach? Beauracry is not just meant to formulate systems and processes but actually to see that they followed, safeguarded and implemented. Tell this and beauracrats will show you hundreds of excuses and reasons. They won’t won up even a bit of it.
Please don’t only focus on development of medical field .
The development of allied healthcare is extremely important to develop overall health infrastructure of India.
Private colleges distributing allied health degrees without any restrictions. This need to be curved .
Many bright allied healthcare rehab professionals such as Occupational therapist and physiotherapist , speech therapists are working on junior level even though they have masters degree
Government need to give utmost importance to this issue as well
Regulation of both medical courses, allied healthcare course and paramedical courses are important.
We have to note that many important healthcare professions such as Occupational therapy and physiotherapy are independent practitioners as well
Top students should study mathematics, statistics, computer science, physics and economics. These disciplines require high intelligence.
Medical science is more of a rote-learning profession.
Why would a high IQ student wish to go for medical science? Makes no sense at all.
The number of students writing NEET is skyrocketing every year, while those appearing for engineering exams like JEE continue to decline. This is despite the fact that there are far fewer medical seats than engineering, and the scope of engineering is much broader.
At this point, it is more than twice as many medical aspirants compared to engineering.
What is the basis for saying that the best and brightest no longer opt for medicine? The view is not a reflection of reality.
I squarely support Dilip Gogoi’s and Shekhar G’s observations about medicine. The medical field does need a high degree of intelligence, but that is nowhere near the IQ required to be a good mathematician or physicist or computer scientist or an economist.
The best and brightest students must opt for careers in maths, physics, statistics, computer science, economics, etc.
Medical science can be left to the next rung of students – thise who are very intelligent and more importantly very disciplined and hardworking. The medical field does involve rote learning and cramming in a massive way and no high-IQ student will ever enjoy that.
My personal experience:
A cousin who was tremendously brilliant had even represented India in the International Maths Olympiad. But was continuously pressured by his parents to opt for medicine because his father happens to be a doctor. Quite obviously, he secured high marks and got admission into Calcutta Medical College. Just a year in and he left the course. Said it does not do justice to his talents. Just rote learning day in and day out. Got admission into the prestigious Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), completed MSc from TIFR and is doing PhD now from MIT Boston.
This is what truly brilliant students with exceptional IQ yearn for. Medical science can safely be left to the second rung of students.
Dr.Talwar makes great points. Lack of prestige, Cost of education, Length of education, Medico legal Challenges, physical violence, Defensive practice, low salaries and accepting referral pays are all practical troubles that face the profession and obviously inter related. Some of these things cannot be reversed as the proverbial train has left the station.
However there is a lot that can be done. Infact the one way to fix the entire system is to make Government Hospitals and Medical Colleges better. It is a tall ask, but it can be started by forming these centers of excellence within these institutions where staff can be incentivized to work better by paying them 4 or 5 times the prevailing government wages.
If Government hospitals can put out clean, competent, cheap, timely and accountable care then lot of the issues plauging the system will wither away. Private hospitals and corporates will self correct, referral pay acceptance will drop, dedicated people will join Medicine etc etc..
But the business of Medicine will suffer and hence those stakeholders will not let this happen. Unfortunately the political will that is needed for such an endeavor will be compromised due to these special interests.
In the end just like a people get a Government they deserve, they will also get a Healthcare system they deserve. It will only be a mere reflection of themselves.
It think you have never met a doctor in your life. Do you know what it takes to be doctor? Are you aware of any cognitive skills like critical reasoning, decision making, observation and of course empathy.
You think one acquires these by rote learning. The very concept of IQ has been outdated now on the basis of which you are passing judgement about professions and demeaning them.
If top-students have opted for medicine, it’s just because of the social prestige a doctor enjoys in our society. Medicine is a profession for rote-learners. It’s meant for people who are good at cramming – it hardly requires a high IQ person.
If a student is indeed intelligent and harbours great ambitions he must choose subjects like maths or physics ir computer science. These subjects require a very high IQ and there is negligible rote learning involved.
Medicine is a profession which requires great analytical ability and high IQ as well as as EQ. In emergency as well as day -to-day clinical practice, you need to diagnose the disease correctly and administer the treatment as per guidelines directed recommended therapy. A symptom like chest pain / fever can have several differential or multiple diagnosis, and therefore, one needs to have high analytical ability to rule out other diseases and rule in the correct diagnosis with high precision. So, i disagree with your point that Medicine attracts / needs rote learners.
The points raised by Prof Kk Talwar in this article are absolutely correct. Mushrooming of sub-standard private colleges in 90s were responsible for degradation in medical education.
The points raised by Dr Talwar are very relevant. His analysis for the deterioration of the profession are spot on.
The solution lies in growing community owned medical schools funded by tax resources where fees are realistic, every student is entitled to sufficient educational loan. The loans must be paid back by a 5 year service at community medical establishments like primary care centres & secondary care centres. To enable this these fresh graduates must be paid salaries which must t be adequate eg. 25 % to repay the loans and 75 % to afford them decent living. A similar model can be rolled out to finance those who wish to pursue specialisation. This time they commit to 3 to 5 yrs providing service at secondary and tertiary care centres and also faculty positions in teaching institutions. After providing this mandatory pay back to the system they may be offered hybrid contracts where they can opt to work within the public system for variable hours & also do private work at private medical centres. This will also help to break the monopoly of the corporate health care establishments which impose unfair monopoly over the rights of medical practitioners.
Finally, the folly of bringing medical practice under the Consumer Protection Bill must be corrected. Good, ethical medical education will create a pool of competent, ethical practitioners and the black sheep can be disciplined by the Medical Council. Defensive medical practice to avoid litigation is something what a poor country like India can ill afford..
Great read. Thanks for a systematic dissection of the problems.
However, if we also not include the failure of the beauracry to safeguard and implement the checks and balances within the system of medical education, we will be failing to address one more fundamental issue as a part of a systems thinking approach? Beauracry is not just meant to formulate systems and processes but actually to see that they followed, safeguarded and implemented. Tell this and beauracrats will show you hundreds of excuses and reasons. They won’t won up even a bit of it.
Please don’t only focus on development of medical field .
The development of allied healthcare is extremely important to develop overall health infrastructure of India.
Private colleges distributing allied health degrees without any restrictions. This need to be curved .
Many bright allied healthcare rehab professionals such as Occupational therapist and physiotherapist , speech therapists are working on junior level even though they have masters degree
Government need to give utmost importance to this issue as well
Regulation of both medical courses, allied healthcare course and paramedical courses are important.
We have to note that many important healthcare professions such as Occupational therapy and physiotherapy are independent practitioners as well
Top students should study mathematics, statistics, computer science, physics and economics. These disciplines require high intelligence.
Medical science is more of a rote-learning profession.
Why would a high IQ student wish to go for medical science? Makes no sense at all.