New MBBS curriculum full of errors, say transgender and disability rights groups

NMC's new CBME-2024 guidelines for MBBS students face backlash over exclusion of disability competencies and LGBTQ discrimination.

Sodomy and lesbianism are sexual offences, transvestism (cross-dressing) is sexual perversion and exclusion of the mandatory seven hours of disability competencies from the foundation course – these have been listed as the significant letdowns in the National Medical Commission’s (NMC) new Competency-Based Medical Education Curriculum (CBME-2024) guidelines for MBBS students released recently.

Transgender and disability rights groups protesting the revised curriculum said that they would write to the NMC to urgently rectify the “errors’’ in the next seven days, failing which they would request the World Federation for Medical Education to temporarily suspend NMC’s recognition.

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Speaking to The Hindu following the release of the new CBME-2024 curriculum, Satendra Singh, heading the Doctors with Disabilities: Agents of Change group, which works in the area of welfare for doctors with disabilities, said: “The NMC is in violation of the Transgender Persons Protection Act, 2019. After being admonished by the Madras and Kerala High Courts, the Commission issued a letter dated October 13, 2021, to all medical universities, instructing them not to approve content that contains unscientific, derogatory and discriminatory information on the LGBTQ community. Yet, under these new regulations, the NMC requires faculty to teach MBBS students in forensic medicine that sodomy and lesbianism are sexual offences and transvestism [cross-dressing] is sexual perversion.’’

He further added that inclusion of disability rights was highlighted as a mandatory competency in 2019 by the NMC; however, it had now suddenly removed the mandatory seven hours of Disability Competencies from the Foundation Course in its new regulations, which violates the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act (RPDA), 2016.

“Section 39 (2)(f) of the RPDA mandates the inclusion of the rights of persons with disabilities in the curriculum of universities, colleges and schools. Section 47 (1)(b) further requires the integration of disability as a component in all educational courses for university teachers, doctors, nurses, and para-medical personnel. The curriculum’s sole focus on the management of disabilities reinforces the NMC’s outdated and archaic emphasis on the medical model of disability rather than the human rights model of disability. Why must doctors from the disability and transgender community repeatedly take the NMC to court to ensure the implementation of laws already mandated?’’ the group has questioned.

The NMC, on its part, has maintained that it has evolved the curriculum from the 2019 version, making it “more learner-centric, patient-centric, gender-sensitive, outcome-oriented and environment appropriate.”