New Delhi, March 17: The Indian Medical Association is not opposed to health minister Anbumani Ramadoss?s plan that doctors be evaluated every five years so that they keep up with the latest developments, but wants the Centre to ensure facilities are available for continuing medical education.

The association also dismissed the idea of holding examinations every five years.

?We have been emphasising on continuing medical education for a long time, because if you wish to excel in your profession you need to keep abreast of what is happening in different fields of medicine,? said Dr Sanjiv Malik of the IMA.

?We are not against the idea of continuing education, but we need to structure this and make facilities for continuing medical education available to all doctors and not just those in the bigger cities and towns,? he said.

Doctors should be asked to prescribe to particular journals, attend conferences, present papers and clock up continuing education hours, Malik suggested. Every five years, someone has to add up these hours, as in the US. For that, we need to have a proper system in place, he said.

Malik believes the association can do much of this, but the idea has to be worked out before any move is made to evaluate doctors and a new system put in place.