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

Even as the government claims to have increased the number of medical education seats in the country, these medical colleges and institutes face a severe student enrollment crisis in post-graduate courses such as anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, pharmacology, forensics, microbiology and pathology, according to an official aware of the matter on condition of anonymity.

This has led to a faculty shortage for these courses since students are not keen on pursuing them.

In this scenario, the National Medical Commission (NMC) is mulling a two-pronged strategy to bridge the gap in demand for these courses.

First, NMC will open a third of the vacant faculty posts to non-medical teachers with a doctorate in the subject and a Bachelor’s and Master’s from the science stream. The other part of the plan is to make these courses more attractive for students through incentives and the inclusion of clinical activities.

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Reportedly, there are 1.3 million MBBS doctors (both private and government colleges) registered with the National Medical Commission, however, their specialisations are not known.

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,” said an official aware of the matter.

For example, a course with around 100 students should have at least three faculty members—a professor, an associate professor, and an assistant professor. However, the shortage of teachers in many courses makes running colleges difficult.

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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 said. “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 forward, colleges will issue public advertisements in two phases. In the first round, advertisements will be for faculty with a medical background in the specified subject. However, if these posts remain unfilled, the second advertisement will open them for non-medical faculty teachers, specifying that the posts were opened as there were no suitable 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 department, who does not wish to be named, said, “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 among medical students that courses like anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, pharmacology, forensics, microbiology, and pathology are non-clinical subjects and require no interaction with patients, which discourages them from opting for these subjects 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 sent to the health ministry spokesperson remained unanswered till press time.