The Punjab Medical Council has announced that training programmes conducted by the state Health Department will now be counted towards mandatory credit hours required for registration renewal. The council has also removed the earlier condition of fee for recognising these departmental trainings. This comes as a major relief for government doctors.
Government-sponsored training programmes and workshops will now provide PMC credit hours free of cost, eliminating the need for doctors to attend expensive private seminars for registration renewal. Under existing rules, all allopathic doctors in Punjab are required to complete at least 50 hours of recognised continuing medical education (CME) programmes every five years to stay updated with new medical methods and research.
Government medical officers and specialists were facing difficulties as they had to attend departmental training sessions and, in addition, spend from their own pockets to participate in external conferences to meet the CME requirement.
