PG Times

The Supreme Court on Thursday put the ball in Centre’s court to take a call on providing reservation in appointment for faculty posts in speciality and super speciality posts in medical colleges including the prestigious All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS). “We clarify that it is for the Central Government to take a decision as to whether there should be reservation in speciality and super speciality posts,” a five-judge bench headed by justice H.L. Dattu said. The Centre had moved the apex court seeking review of a Constitution Bench judgement which had said it cannot take a view contrary to the one expressed in 1992 by a nine-judge bench in the Indra Sawhney case, also known as the Mandal case, that there could be no compromise with merit at super speciality stage. As soon as Additional Solicitor General L. Nageshwar Rao opened his arguments, the bench said the judgement makes it clear that the Centre has to follow the advice given in the Indra Sawhney case. ...

Starting this year, the Government of Punjab has decided to hold its own examination to fill PG medical seats. Since a couple of years, it was the All India Post Graduate  Medical Entrance Examination (AIPGMEE) that students had to pass to get PG seats in the state medical colleges. However, it was observed that few students from Punjab were able to meet this criteria, resulting in the seats being occupied by students from other states. Recently, a meeting, attended by representatives of Punjab’s different medical colleges and other educational institutions, was held in which the chairperson was Husan Lal, Secretary, Medical Education. Soon, Mr Lal announced the decision to hold separate PG entrance exam and said that the decision was taken after consultation with principals of state medical colleges. In December last year, the AIPGMEE was held for the new academic session but now, those results would be used to fill 50% of the PG seats while the remaining 50% would be fi...

The Employees State  Insurance  Corporation (ESIC) has decided to shut its medical colleges as this is not its core function, leading to the students protesting the move here Monday. The corporation has expressed its inability to meet the objectives to establish medical colleges and training institutes to serve the insured and non-insured persons of the ESIC scheme. "The ESIC should exit the field of medical education entirely as it is not the core function of the ESIC and other objectives is unlikely to be met," said the order issued at an ESIC meet held Dec 4. It was also decided to hand over the ongoing medical colleges and other medical education institutions, having separate infrastructure, to state governments willing for such a transfer. Though it has been running hospitals under the scheme for the purpose, the ESI Act was amended in 2010 to allow it to set up medical colleges. Presently, 13 such institutions are in various stages of construction. Curre...

A directive by the Employees’ State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) barring its medical colleges from admitting students from the next academic year and stopping staff recruitment has taken the state government by surprise. In a memorandum on January 5, a copy of which is with Express, deputy medical commissioner (ME-II) Vivek Handa has stated that ESIC at its 163rd meeting on December 4 decided to exit the field of medical education since it was not its core function. The memorandum made it clear that ESIC may neither undertake further admissions to  medical colleges and other medical educations (PG, nursing, para-medical and dental) nor start new medical colleges. All ongoing medical education programmes may continue till the students pass out or (they) are adjusted according to provisions of the Essentiality Certificate issued by the state government, whichever is earlier.ESIC has decided to hand over its medical colleges and other medical education institutions having se...

A team of the senior officials of the Employees State Insurance Corporation (ESIC), led by its Director General Anil Kumar Agarwal, met the Medical Education Minister Sharan Prakash Patil and the Labour Minister Parameshwar Naik in Bengaluru for handing over the ESIC Medical College and PG Centre at Bengaluru and the Rs. 1600 crore medical education complex in Kalaburagi to the State government. This meeting took place a few days back. “The talks remained inconclusive and some of the issues raise over the recurring expenditure and the completion of the ongoing works at the Bengaluru and Kalaburagi centre had no convincing answers from the ESIC officials and the Director General of the ESIC has said that he would come back after consulting the Union Labour Ministry”, said Dr Patil. Talking to  The Hindu  in Kalaburagi on Sunday, Dr. Patil said that during the meeting, the ESIC officials submitted a detailed proposal for the transfer of assets in Bengalure and Ka...

The Telangana Government is set to increase, at least, 86 more PG seats in its teaching hospitals. From the next academic year onwards, Hyderabad’s Osmania Medical College and Gandhi Medical College shall increase their PG seats from 282 to 329 and from 127 to 140 respectively. Warangal’s Kakatiya Medical College shall also increase its seats from 107 to 133. With this, the total PG seats shall go up from 516 to 602. More than Rs 160 crore has been allocated by the Telangana government exclusively for the betterment of medical education in the state. According to reports, out of this big sum, Rs 98 crore would be spent on a medical college in Nizamabad, Rs 25 crore on Osmania Medical College and Rs 19.5 crore each to Kakatiya Medical College and Gandhi Medical College. The State’s Director of Medical Education (DME) has spoken to media and said that such a huge allocation of funds separately for medical colleges is being done for the first time by the government. With this,...

Just like Nov-Feb is the season of Weddings, it is also the season of  Medical Seat Booking . Indian Medical Post Graduation Seat Booking. The season of Indian Medical Under Graduate Seat Booking is March-August, right after the PG seats are done. They said that if I wrote on this topic, I would be sidelined/not given a seat even if I get a rank etc. But I can’t possibly be more sidelined than what I already am. I’m a,  Twenty-Three year old Unemployed  ( The age by when most other professionals have already  finished their education & 2 years of establishing a career)  Average, Open Category  (Oh! It’s like the biggest curse to be born with in India!)  Medical Graduate/Doctor  who completed her  MBBS  (5.5 years) in Feb 2014 from a  Private Institute  in Mumbai(which holds a fairly good reputation). All the “Bold” words are more than enough to have me sidelined. I’m now preparing(read struggling) for my Post Gradu...