The revised curriculum in forensic medicine and toxicology has now eliminated all of these topics.
New Delhi:
The National Medical Commission on Thursday released revised guidelines for its competency-based medical education curriculum, removing sodomy and lesbianism as “unnatural sexual offenses.”
He also discarded topics such as the hymen and its types, its medico-legal importance, as well as defining virginity and defloration.
The revised curriculum states that describing and discussing “signs” of virginity (so-called “virginity tests,” including finger-pricking tests of female genitalia) are unscientific, inhumane, and discriminatory.
There is talk of teaching students to discuss how to evaluate courts regarding the unscientific basis of these tests, if they are ordered.
Discussion topics such as sexual perversion, fetishism, transvestism, voyeurism, sadism, necrophagy, masochism, exhibitionism, frotteurism and necrophilia have also been removed.
Faced with a backlash from activists, the National Medical Commission (NMC) on September 5 withdrew guidelines in which it had reintroduced sodomy and lesbianism as “unnatural sexual offences” in the forensic medicine and toxicology curriculum category for undergraduate medical students after removing them in 2022.
It had also reintroduced topics such as the hymen and its types and its medico-legal importance in the guidelines issued on August 31.
These individuals were removed in accordance with a Madras High Court directive in 2022.
The revised curriculum in forensic medicine and toxicology has now eliminated all of these topics.
The guidelines released Thursday also mention teaching the difference between paraphilia and paraphilic disorder.
In the forensic medicine and toxicology category, the revised guidelines also talk about teaching students to describe legal skills, including Bharatiya Nagarika Suraksha Sanhita, Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita, Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO), civil and criminal cases, investigations (police and judiciary), cognizable and non-cognizable offences.
Upon completion of the teaching-learning programme in forensic medicine and toxicology, students should be able to understand the medico-legal framework of medical practice, codes of conduct, medical ethics, professional misconduct and medical negligence, conducting medico-legal examinations and documenting various medico-legal cases and understand the latest laws and statutes relating to the medical profession, including relevant court decisions, the NMC said in its guidance.
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