The new Criteria shall be applicable to all new medical and dental colleges in both private and public sector. This shall also be applicable to all those medical and dental colleges, which are still awaiting recognition.

How To Apply For A Medical/Dental College. 

Every Individual/Institution intending to establish a medical/dental college must apply for an inspection to the PM&DC prior to advertisement for applications of admission in First Year class. The advertisement can only be issued after No Objection Certificate is obtained from PM&DC. NOC will only be issued after going through the complete feasibility report and 1^st Inspection.

Criteria for Establishment or Recognition of Medical and Dental Colleges in Pakistan.

Pakistan Medical & Dental Council in its 97^th Session held on 29^th & 30^th December 2001 has laid down criteria for establishment/recognition of medical and dental college in Pakistan, which is detailed below: -

Comprehensive Feasibility Report.

Anyone intending to establish a medical/dental college shall submit a Comprehensive Feasibility. Report, which must include the following information.

1.  Spac

It must include all the relevant documents of ownership, possession, and plan of academic blocks. Site selected should be suitable from academic point of view. Minimum requirement for total area of Medical/Dental Institution will be provided in due course. 

 2.   Infrastructure. 

Adequate physical facilities for Academic Blocks, dissection Halls, common rooms, cafeteria, medical/dental equipment related to laboratories, libraries, various models, Information Technology etc. must be created for by the intending institute.

 3.   Financial Resources.

Every intending college must be financially viable. Financial resources should be clearly indicated according to level, size, and type of the proposed institution. It should be able not only to establish but also to run progressive medical/dental college.

 4.   Legal Requirement. 

The institute should fulfill all legal formalities. Details will be provided in due course. 

 5.   Organizational Structure/Faculty.

Faculty should be employed full time and qualified as per regulation for appointment laid down by PM&DC. CVs of every faculty member/all members of administration/staff should be submitted to PM&DC for scrutiny, along with terms of reference (TOR) for employment. Qualifications registered with PM&DC, recognized teaching experience of faculty members especially for teaching and examinations purposes. date of joining the college, designation, whether PM&DC approved or not, details of research publications etc. etc.
List of qualified Para-medical staff & Ancillary staff must be included as per requirement.

 6.   Transport Facilities. 

Adequate transport facilities for students, teachers, staff etc. must be available keeping in mind locality of institutions, number of students and other logistics.

 7.    Library 

Library should be well equipped with sufficient number of books, latest editions of reference books/journals, computers with internet facilities. Minimum book list will be provided.

 8.    Attached Teaching Hospitals.
 
Hospital should be well equipped and must be functional at the time of first inspection of the College. Criteria of 5 beds per annual admission can be lowered to 3 beds per annual admission in the first year of establishment. At least 50% of the beds should be absolutely free of charge. For the remaining 50% of paid beds, a written document should be available for allowing the undergraduates for examination for learning purpose. The teaching hospital must be well-reputed and all major disciplines along with well-equipped operation theatres and support services should be fully available. In case of dental institutes at least half (0.5) dental chairs per admission should be available at the time of first inspection. The attached hospitals should also provide emergency treatments with all standard hospital requirements and should have modern diagnostic facilities with close circuit T.V. for educational purposes. Department of medical education and Physiotherapy should also be included as part of hospital/college.

9.    Affiliation with a University.

The Medical/Dental College must only be affiliated with a University of the same province, which has a medical/dental faculty.

1.          SCRUTINY OF APPLICATIONS

Before undertaking the first inspection the application for recognition must be submitted on a prescribed Performa with the details mentioned in the Performa. The application is required to be submitted to the Pakistan Medical & Dental Council (PM&DC) along with the prescribed processing fee i.e. Rs.100,000. The application will be scrutinized according to the laid down criteria. The Secretary, PM&DC will ensure identification of the deficiencies or otherwise for approval by the Executive Committee. If no deficiencies are found, then the PM&DC may approve to appoint an inspection team. If approved, the inspection in question would be undertaken according to the following rules:

i)    All institutions, trying to get themselves established and wanted to or have advertised in the press for  admission of the medical students, should be informed that they should submit application for inspection before establishment of the College. 

ii)     In case they have failed to submit the application before the advertisement time then it should be mandatory that the newly established college must apply PM&DC to carry out inspection before conduct of the first professional examination (This is only applicable to those colleges who had established before these criteria were published).

 iii)    Depending on the report submitted on initial scrutiny of the application, the Executive Committee may arrive at the following decisions:

The institution may be informed of the deficiencies detected on scrutiny, and asked to resubmit the request after removing the deficiencies for inspection. It is mandatory that revised application be submitted before conducting the first professional examination, failing which the PM&DC will not be under any obligation to conduct inspection at later stages. The scrutiny team must ensure that the requirements laid down are duly approved by the Executive Committee and are available in the institution.

 2.   INSPECTION TEAM

The inspection team must comprise 5-7 members, consisting of two senior professors from Basic Medical Sciences and five from Medicine, Surgery, Obstetrics & Gynecology, Ophthalmology, Pediatrics and Otorhinolaringology. The inspection team will be accompanied by the Secretary PM&DC or one of his representatives.

3.                3.    INSPECTION SCHEDULE

Inspection of all relevant departments should be done for concerned year of training at the times given below.  The objectives for each visit are mentioned below and the details are present in the forms.

Visit.1  Ist Comprehensive Inspection Prior to the first admission of students. Objectives: The inspection team would look into the following in addition to the
criteria already given.
Suitability of the venue for educational purposes
Availability of all necessary infrastructure and physical facilities needed during the first professional

·    1)   Presence of needed educational resources
2)   Recruitment of appropriate and adequate teaching faculty
3)   Availability of written curriculum
4)   Frequency and source of funds
5)   Procedure for financial accountability

Visit.2  At the time of first professional examination
Objectives: The inspection team would observe
I)    The conduct of examination
ii)    Availability of appropriate and adequate numbers of examiners
iii)    Relevance of assessment to the objectives of training for the year
iv)   And report on the transparency and fairness of the examination

Visit.3   Beginning of the 3rd year or second professional
Objectives: The inspection team would look into the;
Availability of all necessary infrastructure and physical facilities needed during the second professional in the medical college as well as affiliated teaching hospital.
Adequacy of clinical training opportunities including workload, case mix on the hospitals.
i)   Availability of required clinical faculty
ii)  Presence of needed educational resources
iii)  Recruitment of appropriate and adequate teaching faculty
iv) Availability of written training program with objectives, syllabus, teaching methods and assessment program

Visit.4   At the time of second professional examination
Objectives: The inspection team would observe
i)  The conduct of examination
ii)  Availability of appropriate and adequate numbers of examiners
iii)  Relevance of assessment to the objectives of training for the year
iv) And report on the transparency and fairness of the examination

Visit.5   2nd Comprehensive Inspection beginning of the 4th year or third professional.
Objectives: The inspection team would look into the
i)  Availability of all necessary infrastructure and physical facilities needed during the third professional in the medical college as well as affiliated teaching hospital
ii)   Adequacy of clinical training opportunities including workload, case mix.
iii)  Availability of required clinical faculty  
iv)  Presence of needed educational resources
v)  Recruitment of appropriate and adequate teaching faculty.
vi)  Availability of written training program with objectives, syllabus, teaching methods and assessment program.

Visit.6   At the time of third professional examination
Objectives: The inspection team would observe
i)  The conduct of examination
ii)  Availability of appropriate and adequate numbers of examiners
iii)  Relevance of assessment to the objectives of training for the year
iv)  And report on the transparency and fairness of the examination

Visit.7   At the time of fourth professional examination
Objectives: The inspection team would observe
i)  The conduct of examination
ii)  Availability of appropriate and adequate numbers of examiners
iii)  Relevance of assessment to the objectives of training for the year
iv)  And report on the transparency and fairness of the examination
v)   In addition to the above stages the Council shall also conduct surprise inspections of the colleges.

The Medical /Dental College which are fully recognized by the Council are inspected after every five year to ensure that the standard on which the college was granted full recognition is maintained.