Stressing on the need to revamp the health education system in the country, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday said that a bill for the formation of a council for human resource in health will be introduced in parliament soon.

"The Government of India is reviewing the existing regulatory system for medical education. Ministry of Health has prepared a draft bill for setting up a National Council for Human Resources in Health that will be introduced soon in parliament," the prime minister said, addressing the 38th Convocation of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), the country's premier research and referral hospital.

"The bill will seek to create an enabling environment that will address issues of quality, quantity and equitable distribution of medical education resources. National Council for Human Resource in Health will be formed soon," he added.

The prime minister's announcement brings to end the turf war between the human resource development and health ministries, which started when the HRD ministry proposed taking medical education under the ambit of its proposed National Commission for Higher Education and Research (NCHER), while the health ministry proposed a separate National Council for Human Resource in Health (NCHRH). Highlighting the need to revamp the education system in health, the prime minister said that an inter-disciplinary approach is needed.

"The need of the hour is to produce professionals who address health not only from the perspective of the individual patient but as part of a team integrated into the larger health system. Inter-disciplinary and health system connectivity have to be the key coordinates on which medical education has to advance," he said.

"In the future, it is not biology alone that will drive medical care. Disciplines such as epidemiology, economics, social and behavioral sciences, ethics and human rights will all influence the manner in which health will be promoted and healthcare provided to our nation."

While the health ministry looked enthused over the backing, a deadline for bringing the bill was not given.

The Medical Council of India (MCI) plans to introduce a common entrance exam for all medical colleges - public or private - for both undergraduate and post graduate courses, possibly as early as 2011.

From 2011, those who aspire to become doctors in the country will not have to worry about giving as many entrance tests as possible to get admission to a medical college, modalities of which will be finalised in the next two weeks.

The MCI has plans to set up a nationwide common entrance test (CET) for study of medicine in both government and private colleges.

Such an examination will replace the 17 medical entrance examinations currently existing in the country. As of now, a student aspiring to be a doctor has to sit for at least five to six entrance examinations to get a chance to study in a medical college.

The new CET may be in place from the 2011-12 academic session if the MCI plan gets approved. The Central Board of Secondary Education will be conducting the all-India tests, for admitting 32,000 undergraduate and 13,000 postgraduate students. “The MCI has in principle agreed for a CET at UG and PG levels in the coming years,” Shiv Kumar Sarin, chairman of the MCI board, said here on Tuesday. “Once a CET is in place, it will no longer matter what economic background you come from if you have the merit. This will change the health education scenario here,” said Sarin, a professor at the G B Pant Hospital in Delhi.

Students will have to apply separately to every college in accordance with their preferences, be it AIIMS, PGI Chandigarh or a private medical college, after taking the exam. A student will need to score in order to get admissions to the colleges of choice.