At a time when students, parents and even doctors are uncertain whether opting for medical college along with the vulnerability and risk associated with becoming a doctor is worth it or not, some are naive enough to pay millions as fee for medical education and for securing a seat of MBBS. The noble intentions of NEET were to minimize wastage of seats due to multiple admission procedures running concurrently and to do away with the variable criteria for selection used for admissions. But this time there has been unregulated steep increase in fees of private medical colleges.
Isn’t it surprising that a coveted course, with more than a million students vying for it, ends up with vacant seats especially in private colleges? The answer is not difficult to guess. There has been a huge increase in fees by private colleges, which along with disillusionment about medical profession has lead to change in mind of candidates.
It is ironical that the medical profession is regulated, but medical business or medical education is not. Such business of producing doctors based on their paying capacity should be clearly trounced for the benefit of public. Foundations of healthcare should be on touchstone of merit, ethics and character and not based on business deals. Therefore meritorious students, especially from average backgrounds, who opt to become doctors feel cheated when they pay massive fee to buy a seat. It is an insult to the very virtue of merit which should have been the sole criteria for these admissions.
Truth cannot remain hidden for long. It is to be realized that getting into medical college is a minuscule component of the process of becoming a good doctor. Once they opt for this profession, the real tough and prolonged battle begins. Quite a few successful candidates may eventually feel that the money spent and the hard work may not be worth it especially those candidates who may have invested in heavy fees or bought a seat in medical colleges with hefty amount. Some of them, who invested millions for becoming doctors, will be even probably unable to recover their investments. The students with strong financial backgrounds may be more benefited as they can become investors or health managers. But for others, it could be a dream turning into a nightmare.
Those who invest heavily for getting medical education would eventually try to recover their money after securing a degree. This definitely clouds their judgement in any future decisions that they make as doctor. On the other hand, meritorious students may not be able to get a seat. These will eventually have an impact not only on the quality of doctors but also on their attitude towards this profession.
The government should regulate these fees and also ensure that if a heavy fee is charged, then it should be spent on medical education of students only. It should not take a form of just any another money minting industry to be used for other purposes.
The foundation of medical education should not be based on principles of business but should be on pure merit alone. There is a need for uniformity, proper infrastructure and regulated standards for these heavily priced medical colleges. There is a need to set up quality medical colleges instead of launching lot of inferior institutions every year who just work for minting money rather providing good doctors to the society. Our society needs good doctors, selected on the basis of merit and their medical education has to be cheap and good. If the society continues to accept such below par practices, it has to introspect, whether it actually deserves to get good doctors.
Evolution of Medical profession-Extinction of good doctors 