By Our Staff Reporter ISLAMABAD- Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) has formulated a policy whereby faculty members cannot leave medical and dental colleges before completing a mandatory period of three years. A decision to this effect taken by the PMDC’s executive committee of the PMDC will be applicable to the entire existing faculty as well as to the fresh appointees. All the recognized medical and dental colleges have been directed to implement the policy forthwith. However, the faculty members can leave the institution if his or her status was upgraded because of experience or research work and the institution concerned did not want to offer them the upgraded posts. A faculty member can also leave the institution if they want to avail the leave preparatory to retirement (LPR) or reaching the age of 70 years. Moreover, a teacher can also leave if his or her institution submits an assurance that it would not create deficiency of the faculty members in the institution. The executive committee has decided that if a faculty member was relieved of the job because of some negligence or unavoidable circumstances, the matter will have to be reported to the PMDC for issuing a no-objection certificate. Meanwhile, well-informed sources said that the decision is aimed at ensuring that students might not suffer on account of frequent changes of teachers. An official of the PMDC, who wished not to be quoted, said whenever a new medical or dental college is set up it usually offers a very handsome package to attract teachers to fulfill the mandatory list of faculty members for the registration process. He said: “It is because of attractive offers, a number of faculty members leave their institutions in the middle of semesters and join the new institutes and as such it is the students who, ultimately, suffer. Moreover, the PMDC had also received complaints that some faculty members work in more than one institution, simultaneously, he added. He said that now medical colleges will have to submit lists of their faculty members every year.
