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 
We conveniently forgot reservations. 50%.
So which is worse.
Letting in a SC or a rich man’s son?
Society will pay a heavy price for both.
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It is correct that merit alone should be the only criteria and not any other factor like money. But this merit criteria should also take place strictly and no other criteria be there which is highly prevalent in present system.If other criteria can not be changed then there no value of discussing about merit when it comes to money .
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Talk of money is important, as children and parents are misguided and pay millions, just for nothing…It is a big fraud with lives of these candidates.
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Dear Dr.Pankaj,
There is no denying the fact that what we are witnessing in India, is really comprehensible. Basically these are not medical schools but shops. Whosoever bids higher, gets the seat. Here in the US also, the medical education is very costly, but they do not compromise on quality. At the same time, to the deserving candidates they offer fee waver, and in addition offer scholarships also to excellent students. There any person with political backgrounds starts a new Medical School, just to mint money without any infrastructure, staff, teaching facilities etc. The only solution for the authorities is to hold a common eligibility test for fresh graduates is to qualify a stringent test before they start their medical carrier, whether they intend to do P.G., start General practice, seek job in govt. or private sector. It should be mandatory and can get registered only after qualifying the said test.
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Poor quality of education,degrees distributed for money,no place for deserving is deadly cocktail for poor health system. Unfortunate for patients and society.
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Dear Dr. Pankaj, In developed economies, foreign students pay more for subsidizing the natives. A well thought through policy can have room for differential charging to facilitate intake of meritorious students with affordable cost structure. Thank you.
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