NMC reviewing disability guidelines to focus on what candidates can do

The National Medical Commission is reviewing the disability guidelines for admission to medicine courses to shift the emphasis to whether individuals can perform the required competencies rather than what percentage of disability they have. This comes after the Supreme Court directed that the guidelines be reviewed to assess what such candidates can do rather than what they can’t.
The committee framing the guidelines has accordingly decided to rename Disability Assessment Boards as

Ability Assessment Boards

. The minutes of the meeting of the committee framing the new guidelines submitted in court revealed that it would be attempting “to define which

medical competencies

are essential and non-negotiable for safe medical practice”.
Over the years, several candidates with disability have successfully challenged the NMC’s disability guidelines, based on which they were barred from joining for an MBBS course after clearing the national entrance examination. In the case of one such candidate, who reached the Supreme Court seeking justice, the court had ordered a review of the guidelines which shall “eschew from a benchmark model to test the functional competence of medical aspirants with disability” in keeping with “contemporary advancements in disability justice”.
“From promoting self-rejection of disabled medical aspirants to assuming that their accommodations would lower the standard of competence and would regardless be fruitless – the guidelines have charted their way into disrepute,” stated Supreme Court in its October 2024 order.

Last month, the NMC constituted a seven-member committee to review the disability guidelines published on May 14, 2015 by the erstwhile Medical Council of India. Three members of the new committee were a part of the committee that framed the 2019 guidelines. Two of them, Dr Sanjay Wadhwa (Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation) and Dr Rajesh Sagar (psychiatry), both from AIIMS Delhi, have been members of all four committees so far that have worked on framing disability guidelines. Dr Achal Gulati (Ear, Nose Throat-ENT) from Maulana Azad Medical College, who heads the latest committee, was in three of these four committees. Three committees constituted earlier were dominated by doctors from AIIMS, Delhi. In the new seven-member committee, only three are from AIIMS.
“AIIMS doesn’t come under the NMC and so it is yet to revise its curriculum to align with the

Competency-Based Medical Education

curriculum of the NMC which was revised and issued in September last year. When AIIMS doesn’t even follow a competency-based framework, how can it frame competency-based guidelines for NMC institutions? The same people have been inducted into the committee when the guidelines they framed have been repeatedly challenged and found problematic. They will be reviewing their own guidelines. Aren’t there any experts in the whole country barring AIIMS?” asked Dr Satendra Singh, a disability rights activist and faculty in University College of Medical Sciences, Delhi.