by Dr Muntaha Tariq
Pakistan Medical Council (PMC) recently announced that the National Medical and Dental College Admission Test (MDCAT) would be scheduled on 15th November 2020. On 20th October 2020, PMC revised the syllabus for MDCAT. This resulted in a lot of misery among the candidates.
National MDCAT: Old syllabus, New chaos?
Initially, PMC gave the notification on 7th October 2020 which states that:
“There will be no requirement for studying any additional syllabus or material and no new syllabus will be issued by PMC for this year’s MDCAT."
The newly announced syllabus consists of a lot of fresh topics. However, the candidates are left with less than one month preparation time in which they have to cover all. The future of the candidates is based on this exam’s result. As it has 50% weightage in the merit on which the future of the candidate will be decided.
Has copy-paste job gone wrong?
Students are showing aggression and have an offensive response on social media on this latest notification from PMC.
One candidate wrote, "The new syllabus depicts the unprofessional behaviour of PMC. Because after giving a notification they gave another notification after 13 days which is opposing their previous notification. That results in the wastage of their precious 2 weeks almost from their preparation time."
Another candidate commented, "How can you ruin the future of students, by changing the syllabus only 25 days before the exam?"
Students stated that PMC had changed its statement twice a week. Firstly they declared National University of Medical Sciences (NUMS) syllabus only for National MDCAT. Lastly, they presented the same syllabus by the name of the common syllabus. And that new syllabus is different from previous University of Health Sciences (UHS) syllabus for MDCAT.
Common Syllabus for PMC National MDCAT: To be or not to be?
Majority of the candidates are requesting PMC to take their new decision back. They are appealing concerned authorities to consider them as their own children and think about their future too. Such a step will result in poor grades and will finally affect their merit for the future professional field. They are looking forward to the PMC’s positive response and are praying for some mercy on them.
At present, our pre-medical students are suffering from a lot of stress, apprehension and depression due to the approval of new syllabus at this much short of time. And the superimposing factors like present trends, parent’s pressure and expectations from family members also lead to an increase in the level of anxiety.
-The author is contributing writer at Dental News Pakistan and can be reached at muntahatariq@outlook.com
Dr Muattar Hanif
The author is Editor at Dental News Pakistan and can be reached at newsdesk@medicalnewsgroup.com.pk
