Medical Education in India

The recent visit of Sir Norman Walker to India is an event of no ordinary importance. Sir Norman was sent out to examine the conditions under which undergraduate medica. education is conducted in this country with a special view to determining the future relations which will exist between the General Council ol Medical Education and Registration of the United Kingdom and the Universities of India. Some months previously the Calcutta University refused to permit the Inspector of the General Medical Council to inspect its medica examinations, on the grounds that such action was unusual: the result, of course, was that the Medical Council ceased to recognise the degiees of the University. It was believed by some of the representatives of the Calcutta University that the General Medical Council was exercising arbitrary powers, and suggestions were made that an appeal to the Privy Council would be successful in compelling the Medical Council to recognise the Degrees of the University for all time. Wiser counsels prevailed and the Calcutta University invited the General Medical Council to send a representative to inspect the existing conditions with a view to the restoration of the recognition of its medical degrees. It is hoped that the visit of Sir Norman Walker will result in the establishment of satisfactory relations between the Indian Universities and the Genera Medical Council. The problem which Sir Norman has to solve is by no means simple; 011 the one hand he has to satisfy himself that the conditions of education and examination in this country are such that he can recommend the continued recognition of the degrees; on the other hand he also will naturally try to take such action as will promote the interests of medical education in India. Anyone who is familiar with the history of medical education in the United Kingdom will realise that the General Medical Council has played an important part in raising the standards of medical education; the method adopted was steady pressure on the examining bodies, and inspection of the examinations was the chief means of bringing about some degree of uniformity of standards and of improving the methods of the examinations. India has long been left to her own devices and it is only natural that a certain amount of laxity should have crept in. The same thing would have happened in the United Kingdom under similar circumstances.