Need of the hour !

‘0 percentile can get super speciality medical seat’ – A shocking but real truth which shows the mirror to the wrong policies in medical education in the country.

With close to 750 super-speciality course seats going vacant this year, and 100s of seats going vacant every year even in premier institutes, the government and authorities surely need to relook at the current prevailing policies.

Even after 4 rounds of admission this year including 2 regular rounds, mop up round and a special mop up round, 100s of seats out of the 4500 super-speciality course seats lie vacant, causing a loss of close to 800 crore to taxpayer money.

The government must understand that post graduate doctors can’t be treated like bonded labour. Asking doctors to serve a compulsory 3 -10 year service bond in rural areas or pay 2-5 crore to the government for opting out of the bond service, after a 3 year super speciality training is the main reason behind doctors not wanting to opt for a super-speciality course, and that too at around 30 years of age (after post-graduation) when everyone would like to professionally settle down and start earning like their peers.

At the same time, practising broad specialisation gives a better career and money compared to extra years spent pursuing the super speciality course. Other reasons include inadequate seats in popular courses, in-service reservation, introduction of NEET-Super Speciality Exam and problems in transfer or choice of service location, to name a few.

The Supreme Court too declined to consider a plea recently to limit service bond period for super speciality course uniformly in all states to maximum of 2 years and a discontinuation penalty of Rs. 20 lakhs.

We are already going through tough times when more than 70 % of the doctors I know not wanting their children to pursue medicine now, and the remaining wanting their child to go abroad after their medical graduation in India.

The far fetched effects of such faulty government policy might not be palpable immediately, but it will surely be detrimental to the Indian Healthcare system in the years to come with lack of adequate number of good doctors & super specialists in the country.