Medical body goes all out to ’net’ quacks

Maharashtra Medical Council to maintain online registry of medicos to help people get information on specialists practising in their city

Medical body goes all out to 'net' quacks

Maharashtra Medical Council to maintain online registry of medicos to help people get information on specialists practising in their city

In a bid to counter cases of quackery and also come up with a comprehensive city-wise registry of doctors and specialists available per city, the Maharashtra Medical Council (MMC) has declared an online list of registered doctors in the state on its website. The Registered Medical Practitioners Register which is now available online has been divided city-wise and will help people to get information on a doctor who is practising in the state by just typing his name into the online registry. Speaking to MiD DAY, the MMC president Dr Kishore Taori from Nagpur said the primary objective was to help detect quackery.

keeping out quacks: The online registration of doctors will show their
name, specialty and the university they studied in. Representation pic

"Here any individual or doctor having a doubt about another doctor's credentials can type in his name and see if he is registered to practise or not. Details such as whether licence is renewed and what degrees he holds will be available. For example, if someone is faking that he is a specialist in a certain category like cardiac or skin, it can be easily found out,u00a0 as registry will show his name, specialty as well as the university he passed out of. It will be easier to report such cases to the authorities concerned," said Taori.

He also said that soon many more features would be added to the online registry. "Soon this list would be prepared specialty-wise, so we can know how many family physicians or eye surgeons or cancer specialists are practicing in each city. This will show us each city's strengths and weakness in terms of specialists and can help government also in plugging the gap," he added.

He said the entire registry was yet to be finalised. "Currently, some doctors are in the process of registration and we are also in the process of data entry. Not all names have been made online though we hope to complete within two months. This list would also be sent to every district collector and the missing names or those who haven't registered with the MMC would be declared as quacks," warned Taori. City-based gynaecologist and a member of MMC Dr Sanjay Gupte said that the online registry was also for the convenience of doctors.

"If medical graduates are applying to foreign varsities for specialisation, it becomes easier for cross verification through authentic source. Besides renewal of registrations also has become online so people need not travel to the MMC office in Mumbai every time to do their work," said Gupte.

What is MMC and its role?
MMC, which is the local arm of the Medical Council of India (MCI), is meant to self-regulate the medical fraternity and has sweeping powers right from issuing medical registrations to renewals and canceling
registration of doctors for misconduct and even interfering in medical curriculum when necessary. This body was mired in controversy some time ago and elections to the MMC council didn't take place for 12 years till recently.