PESHAWAR, July 27: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Health Department has planned to start classes of ethics in primary schools and medical colleges to produce good doctors, officials say.

“We are also recommending to the education department to focus on the character-building of students at primary schools to build their personalities and inculcate in them a sense of morality,” they added.

Some of the doctors, they said, were bringing bad name to medical profession by indulging in unethical practices, therefore, it was needed to teach ethics at medical colleges.

They added that they were urging the education department to revise the curricula to teach students about the services to humanity and respect of human rights.

“We are also directing the medical colleges to start teaching medical ethics. The students would be given lectures on ethics by the Islamiat teachers at the medical colleges,” they said, adding that recommendations in this regard had already been prepared and soon directives would be issued.

They said that doctors were violating the code of ethics in medical researches and clinical practices owing to inability of the government to check them.

“After the official notification by the health department, the doctors involved in unethical practices would be taken to task,” they added. The recommendations prepared by the department argued that pumping money into higher education only produced truckloads of ‘third class’ PhDs and literally ignored the basic education. Unless the basic education was strengthened, the higher education would never succeed in producing quality manpower for the country, it said.

“Teaching of medicine specific ethics is the responsibility of medical colleges where the subject of medical ethics must be introduced and examined,” it said.

The health department’s move to introduce medical ethics was prompted by a letter sent by Prof Sirajuddin Ahmed, a former principal of Khyber Medical College, saying that teaching of religion related to ethics, must be fully incorporated into the courses. “Since the best way to teach and inculcate ethics is to present role models to the students, it is recommended that a code of conduct should be made for medical teachers that should be made a part of their annual confidential reports,” it said.

In doing so radicalisation of Islam must be avoided and there should be no mention of religious rituals, which were a private and personal affair between individuals and their God, said Prof Siraj, currently head of Medical Education Department at Peshawar Medical College.

Officials said that the colleges be directed by the health department that all medical students should be given an oath of medical ethics in presence of all teachers and parents as prescribed by the World Medical Association and also confirmed by the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council.

They said that ethical committees at the hospitals should chalk out guidelines and criteria for the development of ethical research committee across the country and mechanisms for their accreditation.