Artificial shortage of experts to sign diagnostic reports

The Union Health Ministry has received an alert on a potential public health crisis due to the sudden disappearance of “qualified” personnel to sign lakhs of pathology reports generated daily by diagnostic laboratories all over the  country.

The crisis may precipitate because of recent Supreme Court order, which upheld the Medical Council of India’s stand of allowing only MD (Pathology) degree holders to sign the laboratory reports, preventing holders of MD and MSc degrees in biochemistry and microbiology from signing these documents.

If this order is strictly followed, only 5,500 MD (Pathology) degree holders will be left to sign lakhs of reports prepared by three lakh diagnostic laboratories. Beside MD (Pathology) degree holders, there are around 9,500 post graduate medical degree holders in microbiology and biochemistry. In addition, there are 20,000 MSc in microbiology and biochemistry and nearly 1,500 Phd holders in these two disciplines. All put together, there are 36 500 qualified personnel.

Increasing the number of qualified personnel needs to be prioritized in every medical field. CMEPEDIA wants to facilitate this process by providing reliable educational content.