What we knew all along (Part 2): Postgraduate admissions
The previous post on the TOI report on MBBS seats being barely exposes the tip of the iceberg. Here’s the next one:
The scam gets bigger, and more brazen as medical graduates embark on specializations that are necessary for a successful career.
The price this year for a post-graduate seat in radiology in most leading private colleges across the country is Rs 2 crore while in cardiology, gynaecology and orthopaedics are priced around Rs 1.5 crore.
We always knew that postgraduation seats were available for a hefty price. And if you had to succeed in your career, you had to get an MD or an MS after your name. The sad part is that a ‘plain MBBS’ is a nobody in Indian society today.
The main reason for such high rates is the dearth of seats for PG programmes. The average ratio of undergraduate (MBBS) seats to those for post-graduate is 100:29. In effect, nearly 32,000 doctors graduate from medical schools across the country every year, and the number of PG seats available to them is roughly one-third of the requirement.
Across India, there are 9,085 seats for clinical courses like cardiology, radiology, orthopaedics and gynaecology; a mere 662 seats for pre-clinical courses such as anatomy and physiology, and 1,303 seats in para-clinical programmes like pathology, micro-biology and forensic medicine. Of these, a large percentage are in private institutions which enjoy the freedom to charge hefty donations — which means, a bright MBBS graduate with no means to pay has few options.
Overall, less than 10% of the graduating medical batch gets PG seats through the general (government) pool. Most PG seats, in simple terms, are auctioned or sold to the highest bidder. It’s a system of exploitation that finds its eventual victim in the patient.
Another senior expert, who has held prestigious posts at the national level, says he has urged the UGC to hold centralized examinations like JEE for admissions to both MBBS and PG courses. “It’s a national shame to commercialize education. Besides, death of merit affects the quality of medical education. When money is paid, these colleges ensure that the exit is definite. The students pass, qualified or not,” he said
In a country which needs more doctors who will serve in rural areas and more family doctors; MBBS doctors are denied the prestige offered to their postgraduate counterparts. And in any case, being a general practitioner is far more difficult and requires a lot of ‘people skills’ than being a specialist is.
My own view is that general practitioners ought to be accorded more dignity, prestige and monetory benefits to attract more medical students to the profession. Look at the UK- they produce doctors in accordance with what they need. India’s strange policy means we have seats in specialities according to the number of guides. And quite obviously, the number of guides are more in subjects which are more paying. We need more community specialists than superspecialized doctors in medicine or surgery. Our needs assessment has never been done.
Until we treat MBBS doctors at par with postgraduates, this mad scramble for seats will continue.
#respond
Bill Bartmann on September 3rd, 2009
Excellent site, keep up the good work