The Medical Council of India (MCI), a regulatory body constituted to oversee the infrastructure for medical education in the country and also decide on issues of medical ethics and fix guidelines for medical practice, has proclaimed that henceforth it will be deemed improper and therefore a punishable offence for members of the medical fraternity to receive funds from pharmaceutical companies for any reason.

It is true that the pharma industry, which is one of the biggest and certainly the most affluent industrial sectors, funds most of the medical research that is going on all over the world. It also sponsors conferences both national and international and most of the local “Continuing Medical Education” or “CME” programmes that are aimed at familiarising practicing doctors with what is new in the field of diagnostics and therapeutics. It is nevertheless true that behind all this well intentional effort to promote medical research and disseminate knowledge, there is also the sound business acumen of investing some money to make more money.

While many self - righteous individuals may cry “foul” over this overture, and although I am likely to draw much flak for saying this, I do not see anything morally or ethically wrong in this kind of sponsorship. In fact I feel that if not for this “self help” magnanimity of the pharmaceutical industry, most of the ground - breaking developments that have made human lives much safer and more comfortable today would not have seen the light of the day. Medical research is so expensive that most governments even of the most affluent countries would certainly not be able to afford it or conduct it on their own. It is ironical that the MCI is deciding on ethical issues for doctors because it is an open secret and an undeniable fact that MCI officials regularly receive huge bribes from errant private medical colleges to look the other way during inspections and grant them recognition despite their shortcomings.

For every medical college and post - graduate institute with adequate infrastructure there are at least a dozen others in our country which do not have even the vestiges of what they need to be called centers of learning the art and science of healing. Most of them do not have full - time teachers to impart even the rudiments of the knowledge a doctor or dentist needs to practice safely. Most members of their teaching faculties are actually well paid “migrant birds” who are airlifted from one corner of the country to the other, sometimes in the very same aircrafts along with the MCI inspectors, to be physically present at different colleges at the time of inspection!

Let alone private players who are in a hurry to make quick money, even the Karnataka government resorted to this trick just six months ago by transferring professors from the Mysore Medical College, after it had safely cleared the MCI inspection, to do their "face presentation" at the new medical colleges that it had started at Hassan, Bidar, Raichur and Belgaum. It effected these transfers just for a week and now most of these faculty members are back at work here with their service records bearing testimony to this nefarious game.

While the government momentarily snuffed the candle and changed its cards, the MCI inspectors who had been duly looked after, pretended that they had not seen the same faces in more than one place. I therefore wonder what right the MCI has to do any moral policing for practicing doctors. Instead of trying to do the impossible, it would have been a matter of pride if this body which is now actually a toothless tiger had done something tangible to improve the falling standards of medical education in the country and eradication of quackery which is the real danger to our nation’s health.

The audibly loud murmur that is doing the rounds both in the medical fraternity and the pharmaceutical industry today is that the MCI has issued this recent whip to drug companies only to ruffle the hackles of the big players and then retract its most pertinent and painful clauses after collecting huge bribes from them. Multinational drug companies which are known to have funds allocated for contingencies just like these will not hesitate to dole out a few crores to bail themselves out of such turbulent waters. Not to be left behind, the State government too has decided to do some cosmetic good to patients and has recently promulgated an ordinance that makes it mandatory for all practicing doctors to register their clinics, consulting rooms, labs, nursing homes and hospitals with a registering authority at district level.

Most doctors including the office - bearers of the Indian Medical Associations lauded this move and felt that this sterling act of the government would eliminate the cancer of quackery from our society. But there is a well - known adage that “Devils step in where angels fear to tread”. Proving this right, all the quacks, the most well - known, the lesser known and the unknown have all procured the required registration well in time under this new law which as I had already said in a previous article, has very conveniently placed loopholes to give them and their trade a legal status.

The new law seems to be a “free for all” affair. Under Clause 5 in Chapter 2, it has provisions to register not only people qualified in Allopathy, Ayurveda, Unani, Siddha, Homeopathy, Yoga and Naturopathy but also all those who practice Massage therapy, Acupuncture, Acupressure, Alternative Medicine, Electro therapy, Magnetotherapy, Ozone therapy and Chelation therapy. And very very relevantly, after reading all this, just in case someone is too confused and does not know what therapist he or she has to call himself or herself, there is a new and specially created all encompassing speciality called Pain Therapy.

Now, since the ultimate aim of all medicine is to provide relief from pain, all those who profess to do it, with or without adequate qualification, are welcome into its fold. While qualified doctors, who painfully burned the mid - night oil, poring over their books, will now writhe in pain and wring their hands in despair, all the quacks will have the last laugh!