Dr.Alexander Thomas, Director, BBH, gave the welcome note and thanked the members present. He also thanked Dr.Devi Shetty, member of the newly formed MCI group, for being part of this meeting and briefed the group with regard to the intention of organising this meeting.

Dr.Prem Nair, Director, Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences, Cochin gave the introduction to the meeting where he elucidated the problems currently facing almost every hospital that is running the DNB program.

• Dr. Nair pointed out that students who have done DNB have performed extremely well in life. However, there is a lot of frustration in the DNB student’s community. Some DNB students are opting out of DNB programmes in preference to Medical College postgraduate courses. DNB accredited institutions are finding it difficult to fill up the DNB seats.
• There is reluctance or incapability of the NBE to communicate: this is a major stumbling block.
• Present scheme of admission where the NBE wishes to send candidates to various institution with a centralized process, is arbitrary. The accredited institutions have no say in the admission or examination. This is not acceptable to most of the institutions.
• Lack of internal assessment adding to the final result is a problem leading to poor DNB results.

Some solutions were offered by Dr. Prem Nair

• CET NBE accredited institutions should have a say in the admission process.
• Regional centers must be established for effective communication of rules and regulations.
• NBE institutions and teachers must be fully represented & must head the examination team in the clinical / practical examination.
• Percentile system is better than percentage for finalize the results of DNB examinations.
• Nomenclature is a major issue; NB offers degree and not diploma! Perhaps we could take the help of IGNOU, to give the degree, if need.

The floor was thrown open for a discussion and suggestions for the way forward. This discussion was moderated by Dr.Chandy Abraham.

There was a unanimity that an association of DNB accredited institutions should be created to be able to address the problems the institutions and students are facing.

The association will be called as “Association of National Board Accredited Institutions (ANBAI).

This will be registered body. The following office bearers were formally elected by nomination, without contest.

President - Dr. Alexander Thomas

Vice President - to be announced

Secretary - Dr. Rajasekaran, Ganga Hospital

Treasurer - Dr. Kunal Sarcar (RTICCS, Calcutta)

Member – Constitution - Dr.Muralidharan

The general body authorized the President to nominate the vice president.

A sub-committee consisting of the following members was formed to write up the constitution:

Dr. Kumar

Dr. Prasad Rao

Dr. Mohan Reddy

Dr. Soma Bhattacharjee

Dr. Christie

Dr. Mohammed Ali Kalakkal

Dr. Yohannan John

Dr Yateesh

Dr George D’Souza

Dr. Muralidhar was appointed co-ordinator of the above subcommittee

The Executive committee will be formed with members representing the states. The group approved the members suggested from the various states to represent them, as indicated in the appended sheet. ( Annexure I). The president was authorized to nominate members from states without representation. It was suggested that each of these representatives in turn would form state chapters. There was a suggestion that at a later stage the representation to the executive committee could be region wise( north south east west central) as the state wise executive may be too bulky and some states have very few DNB institutions.

Smaller working committee with E-communication was also suggested.

Patrons of this association will be:

Dr. Ramakanth Panda, Asian Heart Institute

Dr. Naresh Trehan, Medanta Medicity Delhi

Dr. Somaraju, Care Hospital Hyderabad

Dr. Samiran Nandy, Sri Gangaram Hospital Delhi

Signatories of the letterhead will be President / Secretary

Dr. Kumar pointed out the member institutions of the ANBAI must contribute to the funds in the form of seed money and annual fee to manage the affairs of the association.

Immediate action to be taken:

• Inform the NBE President about the formation of the association with a copy to MCI and Health Secretary and Health Minister.
• To request that the selection process be as December 2009.
• If no response legal steps to be taken.
• Write up the constitution within 1 week and register the ANBAI in 2 weeks.
• Circulate the minutes to all DNB institutions.
• Invite membership from all institutions.
• Formation of website.

Dr. Kumar pointed out that in private unaided institutions administration includes the privilege of admission. NBE taking over the job of admission totally is not permissible as per the constitution. This will be considered as contempt in view of the judgment of previous cases. NBE can hold the qualifying CET examination but selection should rest with the DNB institution. This is in view of the fact that NBE takes an undertaking from the institutions that no violation of the rules will be done. There was a unanimous agreement with Dr. Kumar’s points.

The long term issues to be looked into by the committee are as follows:

• Admission policy.
• Accreditation – DNB hospital faculty to be involved.
• Communication.
• Primary Part I Validity (which is only 6 months now).
• Stipend for students.
• Setting and Correction of papers and examinership for faculty of DNB hospitals.
• Internal Assessment.
• Faculty Recognition on par with medical colleges.
• Request NBE that the president of ANBAI should be a permanent invitee of the National Board Governing Body meeting.

The meeting was adjourned with a vote of thanks by Dr.Girish and high tea.