Medical test reports can only be signed by doctors: MCI

The Medical Council of India (MCI) has ruled that only MBBS doctors registered with it or with the state medical councils are eligible to sign the diagnostic reports of the laboratories.

It has barred the malpractice in many private diagnostic laboratories and corporate hospital labs allowing MSc and PhD scholars in various disciplines such as medical microbiology, medical bio-chemistry, applied biology, life science and biotechnology and professional lab technicians to sign these reports.

At a meeting of the executive of its apex medical education and regulatory body in New Delhi recently, the MCI decided that only qualified doctors registered with it or state medical councils should sign the reports.

The decision has been conveyed to both the Health Ministry and the Director of the National Accreditation Board for testing and calibration laboratories that gives licences to the diagnostic laboratories.

Sources in the medical fraternity termed it as a landmark decision. They said the MCI has only endorsed what the Clinical Establishments (Central Government) Rules had made it mandatory that all diagnostic laboratories should have the registered doctors to do the task.

The National MSc Medical Teachers’ Association had been pursuing the Health Ministry to revise these rules.