The National Board of Examination (NBE) in Medical Sciences has granted provisional accreditation to the Government Wenlock Hospital, Mangaluru, to conduct the DNB programme in Immunohematology and Blood Transfusion starting the 2021-22 academic year. The accreditation will be valid till December 2025.
The Wenlock Hospital is the only institute to offer this speciality course in the State. There are a total of 11 institutes offering this course in the country. Of these, Nizam Institute of Medical Sciences, Punjagutta, Hyderabad, is the other one in South India offering this speciality course. This is the first DNB programme offered by Wenlock Hospital.
The three-year-long course is taken up after MBBS. In the guidelines for the programme, the NBE said that trainees will receive composite training in fundamentals and applied aspects of transfusion medicine. This post-graduate level programme equips consultants and teachers in transfusion medicine to offer well organised and efficient transfusion services in their institutions. The trainees will be exposed to advancement in transfusion medicine and provided with organisational and managerial skills for operation of blood centres, the NBE stated.
The Department of Immunohematology and Blood Transfusion of Wenlock Hospital has been allowed to take two candidates every year starting in the 2021-22 academic year. Students have to qualify in the entrance examination conducted by NBE and seat allocation will be made through centralised merit-based counselling.
The proposal to start this DNB programme was made by the then Superintendent of Wenlock Hospital H.S. Rajeshwaridevi. Her successor Sadashiva Shanbhog pursued it and NBE granted temporary accreditation after inspection of facilities.
Dr. Shanbhog told The Hindu that the hospital has posted two of its senior consultants J. Sharath Kumar Rao and Zulfikar Ahmed as faculty members for the programme. Both senior consultants are MD (Pathology) degree holders. While Dr. Rao completed his MD (Pathology) in 1997, Dr. Ahmed did it in 2008. Dr. Shanbhog said that the hospital was well equipped to run the programme.