Apprehensions rise in medicos over transfer of doctors

Vijayawada: Majority of junior doctors in the state have raised fears over transfer of government doctors who have completed five years of service at a place, even though there is a 30 percent cap on transfers.

Their major concern is that annual final exams for both the third year MBBS and second year PG students are scheduled. With the transfer rule maintaining that those completing five years of service must be transferred, junior doctors contend they may have to face new faculty members as both internal and external examiners. They will know nothing about the students’ calibre. Though they can prove their academic performance by writing their exams well, they may face a disadvantage with regard to practical exams, new faculty members will not know about their academic capabilities. This would be disadvantageous for budding doctors.

With regard to research, junior doctors point out that only those with experience of minimum six months at a station can guide students in taking up research work. They may thus face trouble even when taking up research work. As final year students and PG doctors must submit their research papers on a regular basis, their research will get affected if new faculty members take over.

Further, junior doctors point out that having adequate senior faculty members are essential for National Medical Commission (NMC) to renew medical seats in both under and post graduate courses in government medical colleges of the state. Their main contention is that though there is 30 percent cap on transfer of faculty members across the state, in traditional government medical colleges located in Kurnool, Tirupati, Vijayawada, Visakhapatnam, Guntur and Kakinada, nearly 60–70 of faculty members may get transferred. This will affect renewal of medical seats in both UG and PG courses. This will deprive some students from pursuing medicine for want of seats.

Citing these reasons, junior doctors have requested state government to defer transfer of government doctors for a few more months in government medical college hospitals. This will help both students as well as patients at hospitals in the state.