Govt eyes push to college students, faculty for non-clinical courses in medical colleges

Even as the federal government claims to have elevated the variety of medical schooling seats in the nation, these medical colleges and institutes face a extreme pupil enrollment disaster in post-graduate courses comparable to anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, pharmacology, forensics, microbiology and pathology, in accordance to an official conscious of the matter on situation of anonymity.

This has led to a faculty scarcity for these courses since college students are usually not eager on pursuing them.

In this state of affairs, the National Medical Commission (NMC) is mulling a two-pronged technique to bridge the hole in demand for these courses.

First, NMC will open a 3rd of the vacant faculty posts to non-medical academics with a doctorate in the topic and a Bachelor’s and Master’s from the science stream. The different a part of the plan is to make these courses extra enticing for college students by way of incentives and the inclusion of medical actions.

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Reportedly, there are 1.3 million MBBS medical doctors (each personal and authorities colleges) registered with the National Medical Commission, nonetheless, their specialisations are usually not recognized.

Faculty posts

“There’s an acute shortage of post-graduate faculty mainly in pre-para clinical subjects—anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, pharmacology, forensics, microbiology and pathology—as students do not want to opt for such seats. Even though NMC has allowed zero percentile (students with the lowest marks can get these seats) for such seats, the seats remain vacant. Last year, around 600 PG seats remained empty in 20-30 medical colleges,” mentioned an official conscious of the matter.

For instance, a course with round 100 college students ought to have at the least three faculty members—a professor, an affiliate professor, and an assistant professor. However, the scarcity of academics in many courses makes working colleges troublesome.

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“In fact, government medical colleges are finding it difficult to get faculty for some PG courses. We hope that NMC’s draft regulation on Teachers Eligibility Qualifications Regulations (TEQ) 2024 attracts a good number of teachers as NMC has relaxed several qualification norms,” the official mentioned. “This is a temporary exercise. When we get enough lecturers for these courses, NMC will start phasing out the system. This is being done so that colleges don’t shut down.”

Going ahead, colleges will problem public commercials in two phases. In the primary spherical, commercials shall be for faculty with a medical background in the desired topic. However, if these posts stay unfilled, the second commercial will open them for non-medical faculty academics, specifying that the posts had been opened as there have been no appropriate candidates with a medical background.

“However, the priority will always be given to medical background (MD and DNB) candidates. This is the only way to fill the deficiency of faculty members in these courses,” the official added.

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A senior professor from AIIMS-Delhi forensic division, who doesn’t want to be named, mentioned, “Selection of courses is a personal choice of the student. However, vacant seats for non-clinical subjects are mostly found in medical colleges located on the outskirts or periphery of cities. When students complete MBBS, they broadly have clarity on what PG course to choose. Obviously, the first choice is always clinical subjects, but non-clinical subjects are equally good. As far as faculty for these courses is concerned, it is a dynamic process and a demand-supply game.”

There is a misperception amongst medical college students that courses like anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, pharmacology, forensics, microbiology, and pathology are non-clinical topics and require no interplay with sufferers, which discourages them from opting for these topics in PG courses.

“So, in future, NMC may plan to bring more attractive norms for such non-clinical subjects like offering incentives to students, allowing one-year clinical courses, etc.,” the official added.

Queries despatched to the well being ministry spokesperson remained unanswered until press time.