1-year rural stint a must for MBBS students
From
next year, a one-year stint in the villages will be a mandatory requirement for
MBBS students before they can apply for a postgraduate degree in India. Reviving the proposal that was earlier shelved
following nationwide protests by medical students, the Union Health Ministry
has just sent the final proposal for a compulsory rural stint to the Medical
Council of India for approval.
Once it approves the proposal, MCI will have to
make changes in its regulation defining who is eligible to apply for a PG
medical degree in India. Officials made it clear that the rule will apply from the next
academic year. The government has, however, decided to spare students applying
for PG degrees in courses like anatomy, biochemistry and physiology ‘‘as the
country is facing an acute shortage of students opting for such courses’’.
If an MBBS doctor completes his PG course from a
foreign university, he can come back and practise provided the PG degree is
recognized in India. In such cases, the mandatory rural stint will not be applicable. According
to officials, MBBS doctors will have to spend four months each in a primary
health centre, community health centre and district hospital. They will be paid
a monthly stipend of Rs 10,000.
A ministry official said that a plan to make the
one-year internship programme a mandatory part of the five-and-a-half-year MBBS
course has been shelved. ‘‘We had also thought that doctors who don’t work in
the villages will not be given their registration to practice. However, the new
proposal says that only when a medical student has served one year in rural
India and holds an MBBS degree will he be eligible for a PG degree.’’
According to the official, the stipend will be
paid by the states from their National Rural Health Mission funds. ‘‘These
doctors will be accommodated to serve in various schemes under NRHM.’’ Officials
say the recommendation actually came from a high-level committee set up by
Health Minister A Ramadoss which was headed by Dr Sambhava Rao, vice-chancellor
of NTR University of Health Sciences.
When announcing the committee, Ramadoss had said, “The government has subsidized medical education in India. While studying in private colleges may cost Rs 4 lakh, the annual tuition fee of a medical student in a government college is just Rs 4,000 in Tamil Nadu. In AIIMS, it is just Rs 210 while in JIPMER it is Rs 125. So by asking them to serve India’s poor for just a year, we aren’t asking too much. Moreover, the stint will help them gain experience.’’
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