NAGPUR: The Covid-19 crisis has taught many lessons to the health sector in India, and one of them is to ensure enough specialized manpower to deal with public health scenario.
Infrastructure can be developed in a short period but it takes years to develop the brains behind machines. So,
NITI Aayog has now come up with a projection to end the crisis of specialized
doctors in country.
The National Board of Education (NBE), which runs the Diplomate of National Board (DNB)
courses after
MBBS, equivalent to MD/MS, is expected to add 10,000 more PG-level seats in next five years, said Prof Vinod Paul, member (health), NITI Aayog. Dr Paul gave a presentation on ‘Game-changing reforms in Medical Education in India’ recently, where he shared interesting facts about India’s health manpower scenario.
According to him, India will achieve an ideal doctor population ratio of 1:1,000 by 2024, but the specialists
shortage is to be handled with the NBE diploma courses.
“We believe that there is a huge potential in the NBE system. This system covers 6 lakh beds. There are 700
hospitals affiliated with NBE at present. But, we have about 30,000 hospitals in the country in private sector. Imagine, if even half of them join for the academic purpose, how many seats will be unleashed,” said Dr Paul.
There were 23,903
PG seats in India in 2014-15. In 2020, they reached 54,094, a 79% increase. Now, the government is eyeing a lakh PG seats by 2024. This means, every MBBS doctor will have enough opportunity to go for specialization after
UG degree.
Crisis of
teachers has been a major problem when it comes to academics. But, the NITI Aayog has suggested allowing visiting faculty to top-up regular staff, and also allowing DNB postgraduates to become teachers to address shortage of teachers.
Practicing doctors consider DNB through the NBE as a superior academic degree. “DNB is definitely a superior degree than PG. Standard is so high that merely 5-15% clear the exam. DNB admissions are centralized and there is no scope for any manipulation,” said Dr Rajesh Swarnakar, a senior chest physician.
He pointed out that the DNB examination had much more recognition abroad as compared to other PG degrees in medicine from India.