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Ever heard of an institution where your vice dean explicitly tells you that you cannot present your personal research in a conference or you have to “face the consequences”? Well, welcome to the land of “ethics”! The mighty Peshawar Medical College!
Recently, a research conference was held in a very prominent private sector medical college of Peshawar and a few students of PMC signed up for presenting their work which had nothing to do with the college. They had registered themselves as members of a private undergrad research society but now came the “ethical issue”. The society was being run by an ex-faculty member who had recently resigned from the institution! Of course how unethical for the students to present a research through someone who they were having personal disagreements with!
Since it was too much to swallow for the dear and respectable administration, they had nothing better to do than to start threatening the students to make them stop by issuing a new rule overnight. Yes, you read that right! Threatening the students saying “whoever leaves the college premises and presents their research without college’s ethical clearance will face the consequences” was the solution to their egoistic issues. Admiration of the ethical crown they wear on their heads is totally due!
Living in a society where the issues of child abuse need to be addressed, this committee recently rejected the display of a research poster on the topic because it was too “unethical”. A year ago a research based on puberty was also rejected. Obviously, these issues can deteriorate the minds of poor medical students and research on chocolate is what they should be doing!
Talking about ethics, the same medical college demanded 60k per student as university examination fee from students last year even though it had been paid in the annual fee. The administration asked for proof and told the students “to study and let their parents deal with the money issues”. On showing proof of challan bill, the principal dissolved the matter by saying “hum iss notice ko postpone kar dete hain” It was a matter of only 1,2 crore rupees so who really cares?
However, coming back to the point, issuing such a notice and making the students bound to the college for presenting research work and that too through prior notice with the approval of this very authentic committee is a joke. Not only the college should issue an apology to the students for behaving “unethically” with them but also giving them back their due freedom of doing whatever they want as long as they are not using the name of their mighty college.
