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Medical students to oppose proposed move for extra year

Bindu Shajan Perappadan

NEW DELHI: Murmurs of protest are being heard from medical students in the Capital over the Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry’s latest proposal to add an extra year and a half to the five-and-a-half-year-long existing undergraduate medical degree course. The Government is proposing to add a “village internship programme” and “medical ethics course” to the existing undergraduate programme.

“As we understand the Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry is all set to present before the Medical Council of India a proposal that includes increasing the duration of undergraduate medical course to seven years -- a year of rural posting and an additional six months of course study. It is believed that the rural posting would be implemented from the 2008-09 batch onwards. If introduced we will oppose the move. We are planning to write to the Medical Council of India expressing our displeasure over the matter,” said Abhishek Bansal, president of the Maulana Azad Medical College’s Azad Medicos Association. “The Government is not spending enough to built medical and supportive infrastructure to help bring quality health care to rural India and is now expecting medical students to work in the rural areas. While we are not opposed to the idea, the extended time period does not add to the quality of education that we are being provided. It also means that undergraduate medical students will have to study longer before they can start earning,” added Mr. Bansal.

Notices asking students to join together to oppose the proposed move by the Government have been put up in the Capital’s medical colleges. Students are also demanding that the Government expand its “rural internship network” and involve engineering students for building roads, architects for constructing houses and students from other courses of Delhi University to bring in all-round rural development.

“The Government has to understand that without proper infrastructure and facilities medical students will not be able to help the rural patients in any manner, ,” said Delhi Medical Council member Anil Bansal.

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