//
you're reading...

Living

The plight of upcoming doctors

By ⋅ April 4, 2006 ⋅ Post a comment

Chi­tra (who is also Suman’s wife), sent me this mail about what’s hap­pen­ing with PG admis­sions and the dilemma the stu­dents are in.

I have the utmost respect for doc­tors and what they do, given the con­di­tions they work under, espe­cially in our coun­try. So many bril­liant mem­bers of the com­mu­nity, flee the coun­try, not just for the money but because of the apa­thetic con­di­tions they are forced to work under, if they stay in India.

Here is the text of what she sent. Chi­tra says that this issue has not been high­lighted by the main­stream media at all and she feels that we as blog­gers and inde­pen­dent spokes­peo­ple should do an equally good job of spread­ing aware­ness by talk­ing about it and pass­ing this news around.

Here it is:

As you may already know, just MBBS is worth lit­tle and all doc­tors need to spe­cial­ize. Well, this process is dif­fi­cult unless you enjoy a quota via the reser­va­tions and also because the ratio of post grad­u­a­tion seats to the num­ber of under­grad­u­ates being churned out is way off.

Any­way, the process of admis­sion to PG is gov­erned by entrance exams; the pre­mier insti­tu­tions like AIIMS JIPMER hold their own exams for the hand­ful of seats they can offer on gen­eral merit. But for all the other
col­leges scat­tered around the coun­try there is just one exam, which hap­pens once a year: the All India Med­ical Post Grad­u­a­tion Exam­i­na­tion (AIPGE). Aspi­rants usu­ally take at least six months off from their work
to pre­pare for this exam; some stretch it up to one and a half years if they had missed the bus the pre­vi­ous year. This exam is under con­trol of the Med­ical Coun­cil of India and is con­ducted by the AIIMS insti­tute every year.

This year, the AIPGE forms were given out in Sep­tem­ber, the exam was held on 7th Jan­u­ary in cen­ters all over the coun­try, the results were announced on Feb­ru­ary 14,th and the coun­sel­ing process was announced for March 3rd. But on March 1st 2006 there was an announce­ment made on the web site of the Min­istry of Health and Fam­ily Wel­fare (www.mohfw.nic.in) about the coun­sel­ing being post­poned and the results with­held in response to ‘wide­spread mal­prac­tices noticed in Chennai’.

The Cen­tral Bureau of Inves­ti­ga­tion was called in to look into the issue. That was last offi­cial announce­ment made by the min­istry. The Indian Med­ical Coun­cil did not even bother to send let­ters or even e-mails to all the can­di­dates that were short-listed. Rumors of a re-examination and can­cel­la­tion of exam run wild. The courses have to start by May 31 for them to be rec­og­nized by the Med­ical Coun­cil, if that doesn’t hap­pen all the seats are lost for that year.

It does not come as too much of a sur­prise, for it is not the first time this has hap­pened. This hap­pened with the AIPGE exam in 2002; hap­pens with many state exams every year.
• Results of the entrance con­ducted by the Rajiv Gandhi Uni­ver­sity of Health Sci­ences, Ban­ga­lore is being con­tested in court.
• In Andhra Pradesh and Maha­rash­tra too, the results are being con­tested in court.

This search should throw up some rel­e­vant news articles.

The Med­ical Coun­cil and the min­istry have failed to arrest those respon­si­ble for cor­rup­tion and mal­prac­tices. And now, they choose to tax us, the doctors.

What is aston­ish­ing is how the main­stream media has been kept out of it com­pletely. Only one news chan­nel flashed it on their mar­quee for 24 hours. After that, no one car­ried a report, no fol­low up, noth­ing. I
appeal to you to kindly fea­ture the story after research­ing it. We have an infor­mal forum at www.rxpgonline.com where you have doc­tors lament­ing about our state. And a few doc­tors are fil­ing a case in the Supreme Court on behalf of the doctors.

If you could fea­ture this story, the atten­tion thus gath­ered would at least accel­er­ate the process if not really put an end to this injus­tice meted out to those doc­tors that chose to stay back, instead of fly­ing to UK or USA.

- Dr. Chi­tra. S

Discussion

12 Responses to “The plight of upcoming doctors”

  1. I think she wrote it some­time back. The MSM has finally started giv­ing cov­er­age. But, thanks a ton Anita. I really appre­ci­ate it. :-)

    Posted by Suman | April 4, 2006, 12:13 pm

  2. Anita,
    I would just like to add that these Doc­tors think hard before fly­ing to the UK, as the sit­u­a­tion is extremely grim here.

    Posted by WA | April 4, 2006, 3:25 pm

  3. I believe we must give our young stu­dent doc­tors good liv­ing con­di­tions, the res­i­dent doc­tors in Bom­bay live a NIGHTMARE with rats the size of mon­gooses scoot­ing about their feet every night. These expe­ri­ences scar them.

    Posted by Wild Reeds | April 5, 2006, 10:59 am

  4. hey anita
    thanks man.
    we did an inter­view with NDTV and CNN IBN yesterday.just that they have no time to air them too often with the glossy news hap­pen­ing around.
    thanks anyway :-}

    Posted by chitra | April 5, 2006, 12:18 pm

  5. CNN IBN …is cov­er­ing this issue.

    Posted by Mehak | April 5, 2006, 1:24 pm

  6. Hi,

    I am Kar­tik Kan­nan at Sulekha.com (www.Sulekha.com) and I’m writ­ing to you about your blog.
    Before I pro­ceed, let me apol­o­gise for this unso­licited com­ment in your blog. I googled for good Indian blogs and found yours.
    Ok, now to why am I writ­ing to you? I’m com­pil­ing a list of the best writ­ings in Indian blo­gos­phere and show­cas­ing them on Sulekha.com. Sulekha (means ‘good writ­ing’) has been encour­ag­ing good writ­ers and show­cas­ing great writ­ing for well over 6 years.
    I want to include your blog entries on Sulekha by cre­at­ing a par­al­lel blog for you. By cre­at­ing a par­al­lel blog on Sulekha Blogs, you can dra­mat­i­cally boost the num­ber of peo­ple view­ing your posts and com­ment­ing on them.
    To know more click here

    Cheers,

    Posted by kartik kannan | April 6, 2006, 5:24 pm

  7. Good one..nice to see indian blog­gers spread­ing aware­ness about news and issues missed out by the TRP con­scious main­stream media.

    Keep ‘em coming…Adios

    Posted by The Bard | April 9, 2006, 10:09 am

  9. I am a doc­tor from India. I can only tell you about my experience,and I know I am NOT alone.….
    The grass on the other side seems greener.…..

    Doc­tors doing their jobs on spon­sor­ship fare bet­ter than those who have done the PLAB.

    Those doing the PLAB will find it even MORE dif­fi­cult to obtain jobs due to the rul­ing by the BMA. This shouldn’t be true… As Pass­ing the PLAB is really quite dif­fi­cult and the GMC is mak­ing it even more so!!

    It’s not your smartness/knowledge that is truly assessed…FOR if that were the case, the oppo­site should be true.…I mean, those pass­ing the PLAB should really be absorbed/be able to find jobs.

    I THINK it more an issue of dumb­ing down.….that the NHS is truly inter­ested in!!
    It is really a form of cor­rup­tion, (not as every­one knows it, where money exchanges hands.….) it’s where one does not voice over issues of injustice/discrimination/ignorance. One is NOT a whistle­blower, so to speak.…..
    And the NHS gets away with ANYTHING.…..(I do not want to men­tion the word.…But I am sure you know the phrase!!)

    There are Loads of TRUE sto­ries in the NHS where patients are NOT given treat­ment for their ill­nesses, and patients migrate to the INDIA for treatment.

    I am in a dilemma, where I am out of job, and am UNABLE to obtain treat­ment for my HIGH BP!!

    A few weeks ago, my BP was 220/125mm Hg, and I went to The Royal Lon­don Hos­pi­tal A&E dept for it.…and after wait­ing for 4 hours was told by the Con­sul­tant in Charge, she would NOT treat it, despite point­ing out page 91 in the BNF (British National For­mu­lary Oct 2005 edi­tion) that Accel­er­ated BP, requires IMMEDIATE medication!!

    This is my PLIGHT and I am a QUALIFIED DR from India, hav­ing passed my PLAB in the U.K.

    I don’t know the plight of the rest of my col­leagues..
    I did meet a DR at the BMA careers Con­fer­ence in Dec 2005, who was from KEM/Bombay, who was in a sim­i­lar situation!!

    And the Immi­gra­tion Dept is mak­ing it EVEN more DIFFICULT for Drs from non EU coun­tries to obtain a visa.….

    One loses the SKILLS obtained through ALL those years of HARD WORK.…

    Is it WORTH IT?

    It is not only BRAIN DRAIN, with all the resources that the Indian Govt puts in to train Drs in India.

    It is at a more PERSONAL FRONT!! (skills, obtain­ing treat­ment, money to sus­tain one­self, visa are some of the issues)

    I would advice ALL doc­tors from refrain­ing to come to the U.K. espe­cially of they want to do the PLAB.

    It is NOT worth IT!!

    Had some­body told me this When I came here years ago, I would defi­nately have thought twice!!

    And apart from the skills one loses, one is at risk of los­ing ones LIFE!!

    I am not being MELODRAMATIC but due to the com­plex­ity of the sit­u­a­tion, It is not just by NOT giv­ing treat­ment as I have men­tioned above, which is is dan­ger­ous in itself, BUT because one is at risk of Iden­tity Fraud!!

    I have this female tres­pass­ing into my flat (I know because of the video timer, which gets deleted, and other clues) com­ing LATE at night.….

    And obvi­ously her inten­tions are not good.….

    I can’t imag­ine it is to watch TV or my Videos that brings her tbere.…

    And she has to be oper­at­ing in a NETWORK.….

    BUT I stay OUT of my flat at night to avoid any misadventures/etc.

    It is as DANGEROUS as THAT!!

    You would think the Police would help.….
    But I am not sure of that either?? I am not sure if I have come accross a cor­rupt police offi­cer ?? I have yet to find out.

    IS IT ALL WORTH IT??

    Please con­vey this to the bud­ding doc­tors and deter them from com­ing to the U.K.

    I have taken it upon myself to fore­warn them from com­ing here and ONLY prayed, that had some­body told me this When I was ready to come here ALL those years ago, I would well have NOT wasted my LIFE towards this fruit­less PURSUIT of a FOREIGN DEGREE!!

    I think they should abol­ish this notion in India about for­eign degrees being better.….

    It is merely a MYTH!!

    Posted by Imagine | April 21, 2006, 10:28 am

  10. i am so frus­trated by reser­va­tions in allindia that i feel like slit­ting my wrist..
    never did it hap­pen in aipge before nor were we told about it at the time of writ­ing exams

    Posted by drkrishna | April 24, 2006, 10:21 pm

  11. Kay­laX , I enjoy your blog so much.

    Posted by Kayla | April 26, 2006, 9:19 pm

  12. Estab­lished in 1997, St. Gre­go­ri­ous Edu-Guidance is a lead­ing edu­ca­tion con­sul­tancy ser­vices pro­vid­ing exem­plary ser­vice to stu­dents all over India. We deal in Admis­sions to all major pro­fes­sional courses in Pre­mier Insti­tutes across India. We are your one step solu­tion for all career related needs, it may be MD, MBBS, any other courses. We pro­vide per­son­al­ized career solu­tions on an indi­vid­ual basis keep­ing in mind the aspi­ra­tions of our client as well as the afford­abil­ity fac­tor.
    FOR ALL CAREER RELATED NEEDS CONTACT US :
    St. Gre­go­ri­ous Edu-Guidance,
    #2, 2nd Floor,
    J J Com­plex, Above Chem­man­nur Jew­ellers,
    Martha­halli — P O,
    Ban­ga­lore — 560037
    Kar­nataka
    e-mail :jojishpaily@gmail.com
    Con­tact: +91 9448516637
    +91 9886089896, +91 9449009983
    080–32416570, 41719562

    Posted by joji | February 20, 2010, 10:19 am

Post a Comment

Photos on flickr

Daily Mile