Dwindling attendance in medical colleges ! who is to be blamed?

Recently in a  article published in Times of India it was reported that 40 undergraduate medical students were denied permission to appear for the second MBBS exams as there attendance was very poor. This has been the case in most of the medical colleges these days. The etiology of this phenomenon is multi factorial.

To start with the quality of students who join medicine is doubtful and debatable. Selection of students should be based purely on intelligence, aptitude and merit. The criteria and  policies controlling the admission process  need  to be changed into a purely merit based system of selection as was formerly followed. Next is the faculty. Most of the medical faculty appointed is hopeless by vitue of age and poor knowledge. Strict merit based selection of faculty is must.Faculty shoud serve as role models for students and not as a curse as is seen . Because of poor faculty even the students who are desirous of studying, lose interest in the subject. In a few colleges Hod's demand  money for passing,  especially in internal assessments, for overlooking attendance issues and even passing in university exams.

With such rot in the system what quality of doctors does one expect. It is only the patient's strong lifeline that can carry him safely through the disease process.