ISLAMABAD: After a month spent making smaller changes in medical colleges, management of the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) has now decided to bring bigger changes in the way medical colleges are run.

It has been decided that only medical doctors will be allowed to head and run the administration of a medical college instead of their owners, most of whom do not have medical degrees, running the institutes.

A PMDC official, who was not allowed to speak on record, told Dawn the decision was taken after the owner of one medical college stepped into the intensive care unit (ICU) of the attached training hospital without removing his shoes.

`This happened last month when a team from the council was visiting the college and its teaching hospital. The team had been surprised that the owner had not removed his shoes in the ICU,` he said.

`When the owner was told that according to standard operating procedures no one can enter into an ICU with their shoes on and asked why he did not remove his shoes, he had replied that because he owned the college and the hospital, he had a right to enter the ICU with his shoes on,` the official said.

After this incident, council management had decided to make it mandatory for a medical doctor to head a medical college and had decided that administrators at medical colleges and medical superintendents should also be doctors, the official added.

`Owners of medical colleges can only be chairmen of their board of governors and will not be allowed to interfere in matters of the hospital,` he said.

PMDC President Prof Dr Shabir Lahri told Dawn that a number of colleges and hospitals were directly controlled by their owners, who did not have medical degrees.

`These owners, who are not doctors themselves, are interfering in academic matters. Qualified faculty and a good environment are required for medical students to learn well,` Dr Lahri said.

It was therefore decided that though owners can look over overall affairs, authority of finances and other academic matters will be given to the principal, dean or vice chancellor of a medical college, one who is a qualified doctor, the PMDC president said.