Bhopal: Taking exception to the Madhya Pradesh government’s path-breaking decision to introduce MBBS course in Hindi from the 2022-2023 academic session, the experts in the medical field have expressed reservations over the move.

They questioned the government over the availability of quality teaching material in the language on the subject. The state government is planning to introduce MBBS in Hindi at Bhopal-based Gandhi Medical College (GMC) to first year students.

Currently, medical education is imparted only in English. However, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan recently announced that the MBBS course will be taught in Hindi from the new academic session.

The BJP chief minister also announced that BTech degree and polytechnic diploma courses, in six colleges each, will be taught in the Hindi language as part of the National Education Policy (NEP) from July 2022.

State medical education minister Vishvas Sarang said textbooks, especially in physiology, anatomy and biochemistry, are being prepared in Hindi for students and they will be made available soon.

“We are preparing textbooks in such a manner that those studying MBBS in Hindi will not lag behind after completion of the course as they will be learning all the technical and medical terms in English as well in Hindi,” he said.

“Books are being prepared in such a manner that technical terms like blood pressure, spine, heart, kidney, liver or other important body parts and related terms are written in Hindi,” Sarang added.

However, experts in the medical fraternity appeared to be not convinced with the “MBBS in Hindi” move by the government.

“I am not against imparting medical education in Hindi, but are quality textbooks with updated advancements in the field available for students?” Research articles published in quality medical journals like ‘Lancet’, ‘British Medical Journal’ and ‘New England Medical Journal, among others, take three to four years at least to find a place in textbooks,” Former vice-chancellor of Devi Ahilyabai Vishwa Vidyalaya Dr Bharat Chhaperwal said,

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While another doctor Pushpendra Sharma, who has done his MBBS and a course equivalent to MS Surgery from an Ukraine university, said a lot of efforts will be required to make the move successful.

“It is not such a simple task to start teaching MBBS in Hindi. The move requires a lot of preparations as medical terminologies need to be translated in Hindi first. It is a tough call,” he remarked.

(With PTI inputs)