Seat shortage hits Post Graduate medical seats
Increase in MBBS seats not matched by MD seats
Hyderabad: Governments of both Andhra Pradesh and Telangana have claimed victory in getting the Medical Council of India to sanction or revive more seats.
However, there is a huge mismatch in the number of undergraduate and postgraduate medical seats. MD and diploma seats are hardly 20 per cent of the total undergraduate seats in the two states.
This ratio, however, is much better at the national level, where the ratio is close to 50 per cent.
While health ministers of both states have called the MCI’s sanction for additional MBBS seats a victory, MBBS graduates aren’t amused. While competition for an MBBS seat in the two states is hard, the mind-boggling ratio of undergraduate to postgraduate medical seats ensures that competition for an MD seat is harder.
There has hardly been any push from the governments to increase MD seats, which number only 1,165 in AP and Telangana, including streams like pathology, forensic medicine etc., which few prefer. At the same time, T alone has 2,950 MBBS seats.
Dr M. Abhilash, former president of the AP Junior Doctors’ Association, said, “It mainly depends on the governments and whether they are focusing on tertiary care and tertiary hospitals. If they do that, MD seats will also increase. Number of seats are increasing in private colleges, most of which go to management quota. Governments have to take an initiative.”
If the undergraduate to postgraduate ratio wasn’t bad enough, umpteen reservations make it all the more tougher for an MBBS graduate.
Patients hardly visit a simple MBBS-qualified physician today and a speciality or super-speciality is mandatory. “Just because the state is bifurcated, they want to show an increase in MBBS seats to please people. But they can’t increase MD seats like that,” said Dr Aditya Kabra, advisor to Junior Doctors Association.
Officials, however, say the problem has arisen because of the split of the state.
Dr S.V. Kumar, principal, Andhra Medical College, said, “Next year on, the government will increase MD seats. It is a long process.”