The National Medical Commission has reintroduced “sodomy and lesbianism” as unnatural sexual crimes into the forensic medicine and toxicology curriculum for medical students.
It has also recovered topics such as the hymen and its type, and its medico-legal importance, in addition to defining virginity and defloration, legitimacy and its medico-legal importance.
These issues were deleted in 2022 pursuant to a directive of the Madras High Court.
The revised syllabus of forensic medicine and toxicology also includes “Describing legal competencies including Bharatiya Nagarika Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita (BNS), Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam (BSA)” besides “Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO), Civil and Criminal Cases, Investigation (Police Investigation and Magistrate Investigation), cognizable and non-cognizable offences”.
There is talk of sexual perversions, fetishism, transvestism, voyeurism, sadism, necrophagy, masochism, exhibitionism, frotteurism and necrophilia. However, distinctions between consensual sex between queer people have been eliminated, according to one source.
The revised curriculum has removed the seven-hour training on disability. At the end of the teaching-learning in forensic medicine and toxicology, the student should be able to understand the medico-legal framework of medical practice, codes of conduct, medical ethics, professional misconduct and medical negligence, conduct medico-legal examinations and document various medico-legal cases and understand the latest laws and acts related to the medical profession, including related court judgments, the NMC said in its document.
“It was time to review all aspects of the various components of the existing regulations and guidelines and adapt them to the changing demographics, socio-economic context, perceptions, values, developments in medical education and stakeholder expectations,” the NMC stated in its Competency-Based Medical Education (CBME) Curriculum Guidelines, 2024.
The result is a results-oriented curriculum that is in line with global trends. Emphasis is placed on aligning and integrating subjects both horizontally and vertically, while respecting the strengths and need for subject-based instruction and assessment, he says.
The undergraduate medical education programme is designed with the objective of creating an ‘Indian Medical Graduate’ (IMG) who possesses the requisite knowledge, skills, attitudes, values and responsiveness, to enable him/her to function appropriately and effectively as a first-line physician in the community and at the same time be globally relevant.
“To achieve this, the following national and institutional objectives are set for students of the Indian graduate medical training programme. “The frontline physician should be competent to perform the functions of a primary care physician and have the skills to provide promotive, preventive, rehabilitative, palliative care and referral services,” the document says.
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