Non-MBBS teachers fear job losses in new National Medical Commission admission regulations

NEW DELHI: A decision by the National Medical Commission to reduce the ceiling for non-medical teachers in medical colleges and doing away with their appointment altogether in few subjects has sparked fear of job losses among such faculties.

In the ‘Minimum Requirements for MBBS Admission Regulations 2020’ released in October, the permissible intake of non-medical faculty is down from 30 per cent to 15 per cent in anatomy and physiology, from 50 per cent to 15 per cent in biochemistry, and from 30 per cent to 0 per cent in microbiology and pharmacology.

While teachers of clinical subjects are always doctors with MBBS and MS/MD degrees, there are also about 5,000-6,000 in the non-clinical subjects with medical MSc or PhDs — their designations ranging from tutor to professor and even HoDs. The practice of such appointments began in 1950s when not many doctors were pursuing PG in non-clinical specialties.

Now, the panel has said that the rules would be applicable only to the new colleges that would admit students into the 2021-22 batch as well as those that seek to raise intake of MBBS students.

“This means that a nonmedical teacher would be forced to stay put in the same college until retirement, and all possibilities to seek new employment would be denied,” said Sridhar Rao, president of National M Sc Medical Teachers’ Association.

Old rules gave space to many

Contrastingly, the MCI’s previous guidelines allowed higher intakes of nonmedical teachers to 
teach pre and para clinical subjects to first and second year MBBS students.