BE PROACTIVE AND NOT REACTIVE! DOES THE CURRENT UNDERGRADUATE MEDICAL EXAMINATION SYSTEM NEED POSTMORTEM?
Article Sidebar
Main Article Content
Abstract
It has been over past many years that I have been
looking for a suitable forum to highlight this ever
increasing problem of evaluations and examinations
in the present undergraduate medical education
system in Pakistan. After being given the additional
responsibility of Chief Editor, Journal of Medical
Sciences has allowed me to drop a few lines reflecting
my opinion regarding this problem. I have tried to
present one of the many solutions which if not the ideal
should at least sensitize the readers for finding more
suitable remedies through dialogue and consensus.
In the end, our aims and objectives should be to
rectify the prevailing problems which I believe so far
has been overlooked and to try and inculcate new ways
and means for better solutions. This in the long term
would prove a valuable investment in our youth.
Evaluation of undergraduate medical students
at present remains a cumbersome process not only
for the medical students but also for the examiners in
its current mode. Since its inception, very little has been
done to critically scrutinize it. It remains unnecessarily
lengthy, mentally taxing while lacking any objectivity,
both on the part of the examiners and students. The
evaluation pattern, both for the theory and clinical
examination, is obsolete with potential lacunae of
subjective and personal influences. I strongly believe
for some time now, that there is an urgent need to
shorten, sharpen, make it more objective and less
mentally draining. Prevailing practice of Final Year
examination remains of having two papers each, for
the major subjects, two to three days apart, spread
over almost seven weeks with obsolete type of long
and short essay questions which understandably
requires not less than a dozen examiners sniffing
through thousand of papers. Natural bias on part of
the examiners is always there which cannot presently
be rectified leading to unrest among the examined
students who sometimes may feel cheated.
Article Details
All articles published in the Journal of Medical Sciences (JMS) are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0). Under the CC BY 4.0 license, author(s) retain the ownership of the copyright publishing rights without restrictions for their content, and allow others to copy, use, print, share, modify, and distribute the content of the article even for commercial purposes as long as the original authors and the journal are properly cited. No permission is required from the author/s or the publishers for this purpose. Appropriate attribution can be provided by simply citing the original article. The corresponding author has the right to grant on behalf of all authors, a worldwide license to JMS and its licensees in all forms, formats, and media (whether known now or created in the future), The corresponding author must certify and warrant the authorship and proprietorship and should declare that he/she has not granted or assigned any of the article’s rights to any other person or body.
The corresponding author must compensate the journal for any costs, expenses, or damages that the JMS may incur as a result of any breach of these warranties including any intentional or unintentional errors, omissions, copyright issues, or plagiarism. The editorial office must be notified upon submission if an article contains materials like text, pictures, tables, or graphs from other copyrighted sources. The JMS reserves the right to remove any images, figures, tables, or other content, from any article, whether before or after publication, if concerns are raised about copyright, license, or permissions and the authors are unable to provide documentation confirming that appropriate permissions were obtained for publication of the content in question.