NMC’s revised guidelines for MBBS curriculum still has deficiencies, say activists

NMC’s revised guidelines for MBBS curriculum still has deficiencies, say activists

Bindu Shajan Perappadan

NEW DELHI 14.09.2024

The National Medical Commission has reissued the Competency-Based Medical Education Curriculum (CBME-2024) guidelines for MBBS students.

Last month, the NMC withdrew the guidelines following protests by transgender and disability rights groups. The revised version too has come under fire. Activists said the 466-word document had no mention of key terms such as “dignity” and “transgender”. They have now written to all stakeholders demanding immediate revision of the guidelines.

Satendra Singh, a disability rights activist, said while eight hours has been dedicated to “sports” in the two-week foundation course, there is no explicit mention of disability competencies that were mandatory in the 2019 curriculum (seven hours).

Psychiatry continues to refer to “gender identity disorders” and physiology describes sexual differentiation or intersex variations as “abnormalities”. Furthermore, paediatrics fails to address gender incongruence, dysphoria, or non-heterosexual orientations.

He further added that the subjectsfocus solely on the management of “disability” without acknowledging diversity. The revised document has dropped “lesbianism”, “sodomy”, and other such terms from the MBBS syllabus.

In the new syllabus, the medical body has included topics related to the histories of gender, and sexuality-based identities and rights in India, as well as the decriminalisation of adultery and consensual adult homosexual behaviour.

Disability and transgender rights groups have demanded thereintroduction of the mandatory hours on disability competencies, introduce provisions of Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 and the Transgender Persons Protection Act, 2019 in the curriculum of ethics.