Lack of opportunities in terms of jobs and financial stability in some pre and para medical specialties create disinterest among students, leaving seats vacant. The Health Ministry is taking proactive steps to bring these seats under the ‘clinical’ purview so that the students can be job ready after completion of the degree.
main cause
Dr Abhinav Arun Sonkar, Professor and Head of Surgery, King George’s Medical University (KGMU), says clinical streams continue to be the favorite among NEET PG candidates, while some pre and para-medical streams like Pharmacology, Anatomy, Physiology, Biochemistry and Microbiology is not given priority. ), Lucknow. “These streams only provide an opportunity to become a faculty member or get into research. Unfortunately, both of these have lost their charm today,” he says.
He said that limited financial growth in these profiles along with the exhaustion of available faculty positions in government and private medical colleges has affected the outlook of the students.
Dr. Sarat Rao, Dean, Kasturba Medical College, Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), Manipal, says, “About five years ago, we had around 130 PG seats, of which around 20 in some specializations were vacant. Today the total number of seats has increased to 223, but the same number of seats are still vacant in the same streams. Thus, there needs to be a change in the demand-supply ratio to bring about a change.”
way forward
Dr B Srinivas, ADG (Medical Education), Ministry of Health says that apart from pre and para medical PG seats in Pathology, Anatomy, Forensic Medicine, Preventive and Social Medicine, there are also some courses that offer diplomas to students. Not many takers are found. Dr Srinivas says, “To make the less preferred PG seats more attractive, there is a need to add a clinical component to them so that they are no longer classified as pre or para medical seats, but as clinical seats. Come within range.” He said that the government and the National Medical Commission (NMC) are taking proactive steps in this direction and hope to see a change in the next few years.
Teachers also offer some other solutions to this issue. Dr Rao says, “NMC has rules regarding the minimum faculty requirement in any medical institution. Desirable faculty strength is 20% more than this number while aspirational faculty strength is 30% more than the minimum requirement. In pre and para medical fields, a possible change could be to bring the minimum faculty strength and the desirable strength on par so that the total faculty posts in these streams can be increased by about 20-25%. This will automatically affect the interest of the students in them.
Another step could be to popularize the MD PhD program in these specializations, says Dr Rao, in which after completing PG, students are confirmed for a 2-year job as PhD scholars. “This will increase the attractiveness of these streams, while the students after completion of the course will be better qualified to become teachers and researchers as they will have PhDs in their chosen streams,” he says.