The Hindu : Front Page : `Professors on call' are lifeline of many private medical colleges

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Sunday, Jun 17, 2007
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`Professors on call' are lifeline of many private medical colleges

Rasheed Kappan

These doctors land at the institutions a day before MCI inspection

While the Medical Council of India (MCI) has this year approved only one new government college in Bidar and rejected five government institutions citing the lacuna of faculty shortage, some private colleges have roped in "professors on call" to hoodwink MCI inspectors.

The MCI's rejection of five colleges — three approved last year and two proposed for this year — comes as a shock to thousands of Common Entrance Test (CET) candidates who were promised 600 more MBBS seats at a subsidised fee of Rs. 16,200 a year.

One more chance

The colleges denied approval will get one more chance, if they address the problem of faculty shortage and get the MCI green signal by July 31, sources told The Hindu.

The MCI, however, has given the go-ahead to the Kempegowda Institute of Medical Sciences.

Yet, as the Government finds it hard to get past the MCI rules, select private colleges are kept afloat by "professors on call." They are all across the town, practising in hospitals and clinics. But they are also on the payrolls of medical colleges, flying to the institution a day before the MCI lands for inspection.

Hefty sums

"These on-call professors are paid hefty sums. There are professors of forensic medicine who charge nearly a lakh a month. As much as 30 per cent of the money is white, the rest is black," a professor and department head attached to a city-based government hospital said.

This was also confirmed by a top official of the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences.

Inquiries revealed that there are four categories of teachers in a college: permanent faculty who take regular, daily classes; weekly professors who appear to take one class in a week; monthly professors who sign the attendance register once a month and may or may not take a class; and an exclusive class of MCI professors whose only job is to make a presence in the college before every MCI inspection.

The council condones up to five per cent shortage, nothing more. Through these professors on call, the colleges manage to convince the MCI of their "impressive" faculty record.

Colleges get less than 10 days time before the "short notice" visits by the MCI but are theoretically unaware of the "surprise visits." Yet the professors on call report for duty a day before.

`Saddest thing'

The Consortium of Medical, Engineering and Dental Colleges of Karnataka (COMEDK) Executive Secretary S. Kumar termed the practice "the saddest thing that has happened to medical education."

But the problem had reduced by almost 80 per cent after the MCI had put up an interactive database of professors in each medical college on its website, he said.

The operations of the MCI category teachers transcend State boundaries. A senior doctor in a city-based private missionary hospital is said to be on the payrolls of a medical college in Kerala.

"Many medical practitioners in the city are on paper registered as professors of colleges in Andhra Pradesh. The principal of an Ayurveda college in Coimbatore is also on the rolls of a privatemedical college in central Karnataka," said a senior professor of a government college. There is great demand for professors in the departments of anatomy, forensic medicine, physiology and pharmacology where the shortage is the highest.

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