Saturday, December 1, 2018

Doctors over 70 will have to update credentials by January 31

TNN | Nov 30, 2018, 08.16 AM IST



 

CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu Medical Council has asked doctors over the age of 70 to update their credentials by January 31. If they don’t, they will be termed “dormant and inaccessible” practioners and barred from practising.

The move was as a part of efforts to revise the state medical registry, the council said. The state has more than 15,000 senior doctors – those 70 or older as of June 1, 2018.

A notification from the council published in the Tamil Nadu Gazette said these doctors must send in their registration certificates, aadhaar cards and proof of practice as prescribed on the council website before January 31, 2019. Those who don’t would be moved to the category of “dormant and inaccessible practitioners” from February 1, 2019. “With this they will delisted from the active registry and will not be able to practise medicine. To get back to the registry, they will have to furnish details. Unless we do this, we will not be able to keep an active and functional registry of doctors,” said council president Dr K Senthil. “To make it convenient for the seniors, we have asked them to send the details by post,” Dr Senthil said.

The council has more than 1.4 lakh medical practitioners as members. “Some of them are in their nineties and we don’t know if they are still actively practising medicine,” he said. The council has urged the relatives of doctors who are dead to intimate it through email or post along with a copy of the registration certificate and the death certificate.

An active registry, Dr Senthil said, would give the council and the state an idea about the doctor-patient ratio. They would also get details of doctors in particular geographical locations that can be put to use during emergencies, he said.

Seniors, however, have been exempted from the mandatory 90-hour attendance at continuing medical education programmes. Younger doctors, who don’t have a 90-hour attendance at continuing medical education programmes for the last five years, will have to pay a fine and complete the deficit hours in 2019, the Council said.

Another cazette notification, published on Wednesday, said all doctors in Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Andaman and Nicobar Islands must comply with the code of ethics of the council that mandated 30 credit hours – 90 absolute hours – of attending medical education programmes conducted by recognised or accredited organisations. The council, on September 30, resolved to implement the clause strictly, the notification said.

Doctors have been asked to update their credit hours accrued from June 1, 2012, to May 31, 2017, and also periodically update their credit hours post June 1, 2017. “Doctors have to pay Rs50 for each participant for carrying forward deficit credit hours for the ne-xt year,” said Dr Senthil. “If the hours are not completed in the next year too, the fine has to paid once again. We kept the fine amount low because our intention is not to punish but to encourage doctors to complete courses and update them,” Dr Senthil said.

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