The National Medical Commission’s (NMC) move to end postgraduate diploma courses has incurred the wrath of a section of public health experts, who said it was aimed at providing cheap manpower to private hospitals.
The draft of the postgraduate medical education regulations published by the postgraduate medical education board says, “No new diploma courses shall be permitted from 2021 onwards. All the Rules and Regulations of erstwhile Medical Council of India regarding existing diploma courses shall be applicable till all the diploma courses are phased out and the last diploma candidate has cleared the examination.”
According to a notification on August 6, 2020, the National Board of Examinations is now planning to start diploma courses in broad specialities. Each applicant hospital should have at least 100 operational beds, except for diploma in Ophthalmology. It should have minimum required faculty in each applicant department. The applicant department should have one senior consultant or two junior consultants as well. A senior consultant should have a minimum of five years of experience after qualifying MD/MS/DNB or equivalent in the speciality concerned. A junior consultant should have a minimum of two years of experience after qualifying MD/MS/DNB or equivalent in the speciality.
However, the earlier postgraduate medical rules, 2000, amended up to 2018 by the MCI say that 50% of the seats in PG diploma courses shall be reserved for medical officer in government service, who have served for at least three years in remote and/or difficult areas and/or rural areas.
After acquiring the diploma, these officers shall serve for two more years in remote and/or difficult areas and/or rural areas as defined by the State government. It had said that a clinical department training candidates for broad or super specialities shall have a minimum of three full-time faculty members of whom one shall be a Professor, one Associate Professor/Reader, and one Assistant Professor/Lecturer, having qualification and teaching experience prescribed by the MCI.
Of them, only those who possess eight years teaching experience, of which at least five years teaching experience is as Assistant Professor gained after obtaining postgraduate degree, shall be recognised as postgraduate teachers.
A public health expert pointed out that replacing postgraduate diploma courses with diploma in broad specialities would lead to a single senior consultant/faculty running them.
A single doctor would have to run outpatient, inpatient, and surgical departments along with teaching. That doctor could go for private practice too if allowed, he pointed out. The courses would not have any reservation for medical professionals working in rural areas either.
K.V. Babu, Kannur-based public health activist and ophthalmologist, said that it would not help doctors, patients or the public at large. “It will only help provide cheap manpower for private hospitals and the move should be dropped,” he added.