NMC's new guidelines for PG Pharmacology curriculum
The new guidelines by National Medical Commission (NMC) for postgraduate pharmacology curriculum recommended the use of non-animal teaching and training methods.
Many years ago the use of live animals was banned for dissection for teaching purposes for undergraduate medical students and now is the turn of the postgraduate pharmacology curriculum. The National Medical Commission (NMC) has now issued guidelines for postgraduate pharmacology curriculum, recommending the use of several non-animal teaching and training methods. It means certain routine laboratory experiments on animals are no longer mandatory.
Moreover, for experiments in which drugs or chemicals are rubbed into animals’ eyes or animals are deliberately infected with diseases, the new guidelines recommended using human-relevant in vitro and simulation models instead. For practical examinations, the guidelines suggested demonstrating the effects of drugs on and interpreting their results in humans instead of using other animals. The new guidelines also recommended that students display “knowledge about the utility of computer-assisted learning.”
Welcoming the move, Dr Ankita Pandey, Science Policy Advisor, PETA India said that following a major campaign by PETA India and others, animals are no longer used for undergraduate medical education in India. “Thanks to the NMC’s new guidelines, much of postgraduate teaching and training will also no longer involve applying chemicals to animals’ skin or eyes or forcing them to inhale toxic fumes, deliberately infecting them with diseases, or mutilating them, after which they would often be killed by suffocation or neck dislocation,” she said, as reported by Daily Pioneer.
For some tests, such as studying drugs affecting memory and brain-coordinated movements, the guidelines recommended the use of human volunteers.
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