Med council’s software will ensure they are up to speed
Doctors across the state will be put to the test by the Maharashtra Medical Council (MMC)’s new software which will check whether the doctors are keeping abreast with advances in their respective field of specialisation.
MMC officials said the software has been developed in association with the Government of Maharashtra and is called ‘Obnicurous’. It has face-recognition capacity along with an eye-tracker that can count every eye movement through the pupil. MMC is the first medical council in India to design such a software with such hi-technology.
“This software can only be accessed on phones or laptops with front-facing cameras. The camera will recognise the face of the doctor registered on his MMC documents. Thus, if the doctor does not pay proper attention to the online video courses, the software will automatically fail him/her and they will have to feel the heat from MMC. Thus, if any doctor’s attention span dips below 70 per cent, he/she will not earn points for that period and be declared ‘failed’,” said the official.
The move comes in the wake of many doctors from rural Maharashtra saying they were unable to spare three hours to attend the course physically and this would deprive them of the opportunity to stay current with medical trends.
“After every five years, doctors have to re-register themselves with MMC, for which they have to score 30 points by attending conferences on advances in research and equipment to get updated,” he added.
MMC president Dr Shivaji Utture said there were 1,40,000 registered doctors in the state and they had created an individual webpage for each of them. Doctors could log in to their accounts with their identity number and their specialisation in order to virtually attend the pre-recorded videos of conferences to upgrade their medical knowledge.
The move comes in the wake of many doctors from rural Maharashtra saying they were unable to spare three hours to attend the course physically and this would deprive them of the opportunity to stay current with medical trends