|
 
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| EDITORIAL |
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| Year : 2017 | Volume
: 7
| Issue : 2 | Page : 41-42 |
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Privatisation of medical education
Mainul Haque
Unit of Pharmacology, Faculty of Medicine and Defence Health, National Defence University of , Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
| Date of Web Publication | 28-Apr-2017 |
Correspondence Address:
Mainul Haque
Unit of Pharmacology, Faculty of Medicine and Defence Health, National Defence University of Malaysia, Kem Sungai Besi, 57000 Kuala Lumpur
Malaysia
 Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None  | Check |
DOI: 10.4103/AIHB.AIHB_27_17
How to cite this article:
Haque M. Privatisation of medical education. Adv Hum Biol 2017;7:41-2 |
Privatisation of medical education can be defined as 'medical education imparted by an organisation not a part of the government bureaucracy'.[1] Usually, private medical schools are sponsored by a number of means and have variable intensities of regulation by the quality assurance body of government, meaning the totally autonomous or the partially autonomous institutions. These institutes are often income engendering or can be non-profit society-centred institutions. Nevertheless, the second option is rarely happening in developing countries of Asia.[2] The 'population bomb'[3] in a number of developing countries throughout the world resulted in increasing demands for medical doctors and the existing public medical schools alone could not face the increasing demand.[2] In addition, the current expansion of middle class society due to economic development in many low-income countries changes people's expectation and aspiration for higher education including medical education.[4] Thereafter, demand for privately organised medical education more escalated in many low-income countries of Asia. Subsequently, there has been a global flourish in private medical education.[1] India is the most successful country to develop undergraduate medical education and more than half of the medical schools are organised by private management.[5],[6] Over 44% of the WHO member countries reported <1 physician per 1000 population.[7] Physician/population ratio represents the availability of health service in any community. Again, the doctor/people ratio is curvilinearly related to population health status, to be precise infant mortality in many developing countries.[8] Hence, expansion of private medical education can be considered as a necessity and justifiable as a strong association has been observed between the figure of medical schools and number of doctors.[9] Nonetheless, escalating the number of medical schools in private sector has the prospect of augmenting and improving access to health care to all sections of people for any community and country.[1] In contrary, multiple studies reported that the principal intention to establish private medical school is corporate interest and profit. Studying in such schools is enormously expensive and medical students including their parents often suffer from increasing amount of bank and personal loan.[10],[11],[12] It has been also reported that private schools often suffer from exceptionally inadequate teaching staffs, residents and also clinical teaching–learning facilities.[13] Inadequate structural facilities especially clinical and hospital services of such private medical institutes generates strong apprehension for the policy makers and also common peoples of any country. As these medical schools may fail to produce community oriented holistic medical doctors because of poor professional knowledge, skills and aptitudes.[5] These issues became real worries for any community and countries, especially for health policymakers to address. Although privatisation of medical education is considered as a very powerful tool [1],[2],[5] to increase the access of health care by increasing physician density, it needs appropriate control and support by the national authority to produce high-quality medical doctors.
| References | |  |
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| 12. | Supe A, Burdick WP. Challenges and issues in medical education in India. Acad Med 2006;81:1076-80. |
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