Russia- Ukraine war has thrown two surprises before us. One is the enormity of Indian students, who go to Ukraine for medical education when the whole world knows that it is grossly sub-standard? In fact, the medical degrees of only Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States of America is recognised and valid in India and the medical graduates from other countries including Russia and China have to get through the Foreign Medical Graduate Examination (FMGE) conducted by the National Board Examination (NBE) to become a qualified medical doctor. I personally know a person who holds a medical degree from a country, which was once part of the USSR. He has been working as a Compounder in a Hospital because he has not been able to clear through the FMGE even after three attempts, the maximum limit provided by the NBE.
There appear to be two reasons for this. One is that anyone having resources can go and get admission in medical colleges of Russia, Ukraine, China and some other countries. They are not required to clear even the basic scrutiny to get admissions. Doctors are still in great demand in our country, even if they are no better than quacks. In India, admissions are given by clearing the NEET, although the caste reservations sometimes compromise the quality still, they are far better than those coming from these countries where half-baked medical education is imparted.
Secondly, Medical education in these countries is comparatively cheaper. The students who have obtained degrees from these countries can, at least, rest assured of getting some jobs or can even start their own practice, where rules can be moulded by greasing the palms of corrupt officials. Even in Mumbai and Delhi, such clinics can be found where the Board of any qualified Doctor is hung/displayed but any unqualified assistant prescribes medicines and administers them.
This can be seen to be believed particularly in pathological laboratories, where a technician makes the report on the letterhead already signed by the Pathologist. Since Allopathy is more profitable, most of the Homeopaths and Ayurvedic doctors prescribe and give English medicine (a euphemism for Allopathic medicines). They forget that by doing so, they do more disservice to the stream of medicine, in which they are trained and qualified but also to the people, who approach them for Ayurveda or Homeopathic medicines.
The Government of India has done a very splendid and commendable job by evacuating rather extricating nearly twenty thousand students, who were caught in the war-torn zone, which has been facing heavy shelling day and night. It was at the request of the Indian Prime Minister that the Russian and Ukrainian leaders agreed to give safe passage to these students. It was a Herculean task by all means. Think of those days, when our government miserably failed to take out five lakh Kashmiri Pandits from its own land of Kashmir, when they suffered deaths and dishonour at the hands of barbarians.
The second big surprise is that despite being the superpower the information that is being fed to the whole world is only through western media. The other side of the story has been blacked out. In all wars truth is the biggest casualty but, in this war, the other side found no mention. Needless to say, western media is notorious for disseminating only such news as suits them. British and American media have always been mischievously giving highly skewed and coloured news and the same is happening with the Ukraine Russia war. And no one knows about it more than most of the Indians but the irony in India is that there is no dearth of such journalists who are ready to be sold out for some bucks and work as per the callings and dictates of their paymasters.
The Government of India and the conscientious people of the country will, therefore, have to give a fresh look in formulating a credible and robust policy so that our media houses could be able to give independent, objective and nation-centric news, not the person or party-centric information. Apart from it, some screening should be done of those students who waste a lot of precious foreign exchange and return to the country with practically no knowledge of medicine and medical science.
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