West Bengal Medical Council makes seminars mandatory for doctors licence renewal
Telegraph | 6 April 2025
The West Bengal Medical Council has made it mandatory for all doctors to obtain a score, which has to be earned by attending conferences and seminars, to be able to renew their registration every five years.
The council took the decision in its latest meeting on Wednesday and Thursday.
“This is to notify that all doctors registered under the West Bengal Medical Council must get a minimum of ‘30 hours point’ of credit hours in a period of 5 years, without which they will not be eligible for updating their registration,” read a notice uploaded on the website of the state medical council.
The number of “hours point” earned depends on the number of seminars or conferences a doctor attends.
Attending seminars and conferences — termed as continuing medical education (CME) — is required to keep abreast of new developments.
“Doctors have to renew their registration every five years. Earlier, the medical council never asked for evidence of how many seminars and conferences a doctor attended during these five years. Now, the council will seek the documents that show how many seminars and conferences they attended,” said Susanta Kumar Roy, vice-president of the West Bengal Medical Council.
“This decision was taken as per the guidelines of the National Medical Commission that keeps asking us to follow its guidelines from time to time,” Roy said.
How many “hours point” will be earned by attending a conference will depend on its nature and a pre-determined methodology for calculating “hours point”, said a council member.
Many doctors attend seminars and conferences on their own to keep up with developments in their field, but many others do not.
“The idea is to have all attend conferences and update themselves about the latest treatment methods,” said Roy.
Any medical college or hospital that decides to organise a seminar or a conference has to approach the medical council.
Depending on the nature of the conference, the council will decide how many “credit hours” to accord to that conference.
The institution will collect certificates (to be handed over to the attending doctors) from the council that mention the number of credit hours earned by attending the conference.
“The institution organising the conference will have an idea of how many doctors will attend it. Those who attend will receive one certificate. The institution must return to the council the certificates that are not issued,” said Roy.
A doctor will submit the certificate — there will be several in five years to earn the required credit score — to the council for renewal of the registration.
The medical council will examine the certificates to see if “30 hours point” had been achieved in five years.
“We welcome the move, but what will be the parameters based on which the hours points will be credited must be made public before this is made mandatory. Also, the medical council should publish rules that spell out what kind of conferences can earn the points and what cannot,” said Kaushik Chaki, president of the West Bengal Doctors’ Forum.
“If the rules are not made public, there remains a possibility of misuse of the power later. The council must be transparent. Nothing has been made public so far,” he added.
A doctor said that usually, conferences and seminars organised by professional associations and medical institutions were considered to be of importance by the medical community.