Category: choosing medical careers

Covid paradox: salary cut for doctors other paid at home

Expensive Medical College seat- Is it worth it?

The Myth of cost of spending on medical education needs to be made transparent.

October 5, 2025 0

Physical/Legal violence against doctors: reminiscent of realms of ancient Hammurabi medical regulation

The painful incident of Kolkata Doctor rape and murder had unmasked the everyday struggle of the doctors in the present era. Her supreme sacrifice depicted the plight of doctors- being undervalued and demonized, forced to work as a sub-servant, irresponsible policing, blackmail by goons and vulture journalism-all have become an accepted form of harassment. Her murder has unveiled the despondency, moral burden and injustice that doctors work with.

With the evolution of medical science and medical care intertwined with medical business, braided changes in medical regulation is not an far off expectation. But reticulation of evolution to modern medicine and health care has not happened in isolation. Simultaneously there has been progressively complex emerging trends in medical business and changing patterns of health investments along with an era of corporate investments in health care has also ushered. Every one now wishes to live longer and dreams of better quality of life with support of progressive medical care. Opportunities projected by advancements in health care, have shown that these dreams can be a real possibility, in many cases. That kind of perception has given patients a hope in lieu of some money. With rich people willing to spend more, the insurance sector and investors putting money into health care, which was unthinkable few decades back in the past. This reticulation of business and health care allowed health care to be controlled in some way by administrators and investors. Away from the health providers, who actually treated the patients.

As it is no more simply treating a disease and involves many more issues. New model of medical regulation and business in health care is still not a mature process. It has emerged and progressed in just for few decades, as compared to medical treatments and systems that existed since ancient times. It is still in infancy and still has to go a long way to do real justice to every one. No one really knows how to regulate this difficult area, which encompasses life and death, deals with extremes of poverty and riches, mortality and morbidity, pain and relief , sadness and happiness, smiles and sorrows and uncountable emotions, intertwines with financial aspects. Most difficult part is amalgamation of intricacies of science with minds of patient and doctor’s skill in newly evolved milieu of financial complexities. Results are not encouraging for the medical profession.

An effort to govern or regulate the medical profession is not new. Hammurabi had initiated to write the rules of the game. This single professional species was managed with cruel regulation around 5000 years ago, that initiated a change in the global perception and regulatory system in radical and unprecedented ways.

Hammurabi 5000 years ago, was not even at the doorstep of medical science, but he promulgated some rules. It is difficult to say whether he was naive or brilliant enough to make it more mathematical. He fixed heavy prize for saving lives and used to cut the hands of physicians for death or untoward incident. But he was still wise enough to pay heavily if life was saved. After thousands of years, with some scientific advancements, our regulation has remained more or less similar in basics. It is still based on principles of revenge and punishments. Now clearly knowing well the limitation of medical science and the uncertainties and complexities of human body in better way, it still remains somewhat unfair to doctors. In other words, it has not attained enough evolution and maturity.

Hammurabi at the start of civilization believed that doctors needed to be punished in case there was poor prognosis. He failed to understand the complexity of human body and the limitations of medical science, most of which was unknown at that time. By an application of average wisdom, doctor can be easily blamed for poor outcome, because he is always a common link between treatment and poor prognosis. Stricter punishments were imposed to regulate medical profession, even when the medical science was not even developed enough to deal with most of diseases. Children are always taught in school that medical profession is a noble one. But they are never told, about the cruelty this profession has faced since ancient times. Almost universally, the earlier work or contribution of a doctor to society is not taken into account. Even for complexities of medical science and uncertainties of the outcome, blame can conveniently be passed on doctors due to application of average wisdom.

Hammurabi’s Codex specified the harshest form of deselection of health providers possible. If the physician erred through omission or commission, his fingers or hands were cut off, immediately stopping his practice. Therefore, a single mistake can undo all the good work of past or the future good work that could have been accomplished.

Problem here is that who can differentiate with certainty the real cause of sufferings of patient, a poor prognosis or a mistake. Such harsh regulatory systems will dissuade other good people joining the profession, again resulting in further inhibition and flourishing of profession for the good. Obviously, harsher penalties will discourage a physician surplus.

Today the global system of medical regulation, is becoming somewhat similar, to those ancient regulations in terms of punishment and revenge. Differential payment system for health care also resembles the Code of Hammurabi in some respects. And this is even though now we are very well conversant with the known uncertainty and complexity of the human body and despite cognizance of the poor prognosis in many disease states.

Fear factors on doctors and impact of present legal complexities is already at par with that of Hammurabi’s era

Covid paradox: salary cut for doctors other paid at home

Expensive Medical College seat- Is it worth it?

The Myth of cost of spending on medical education needs to be made transparent.

August 25, 2024 2

Difficult to serve uncivilized society-poor Governance and pathetic law & order #Kolkata-Lady-Doc-murder

The brutal assault and murder on a woman doctor at R G Kar Medical college Kolkata has made doctors preparing for a career in the medical profession worried. This shameful act on a lady doctor reflects that doctors are serving an uncivilized society. Such news is viewed by medical community anxiously and is a poor advertisement for younger generation to take medicine as profession. Aspiring medical students need to think- whether they should enter the ring-on-fire, opt to become doctors to serve an uncivilized society.

Strangely media, courts, prominent people, celebrities, human right commission, woman right activists and women commission are little concerned about the blatant injustice done towards doctors. This again brings forth the hypocrisy of these people and organizations, who otherwise cry hoarse about woman rights and empowerment. Whenever a female is assaulted, there is an outrage, but the same support is not extended to a female if she is a doctor. Such bestiality should create havoc in minds of civilized people but this apathy to such incidents repeatedly clearly indicates otherwise. Can’t we see that such incidents are harbinger of many more in future? It is important to realize that this is the time to unify and condemn such episodes vehemently and prominently so that the miscreants realize that they cannot get away with it.

Brutality against doctors reveals a deep prejudice and lawlessness. Everyday violence against doctors is common merely on the basis of perceived negligence. Government is either unwilling to act and establish a strong culture of deterrence, so justice been elusive for medical professionals.

Even murderous assaults on doctors in the past are not enough to shake administrators, courts and doctors’ organizations out of slumber. Such violence, if unabated will be poor advertisement for next generation to take medical profession as a first choice.

Media and celebrities have proudly projected in films and television that doctors can be beaten and assaulted, in case there are unexpected results or in case of dissatisfaction. The “Reel Heroes” depicting violence against the doctor is seen as a routine and looked as an easily do-able- adventure due to unwillingness of Government to take stringent action. As patients will continue to get treatment in hospitals and few cannot be saved, so every death declaration may be a harbinger to such attacks in future.

After such big hue and cry after this incidence, Courts and Government have woken up and there is a hope that real culprits and preparators will be caught. People need to know the truth and not merely hanging the scapegoats.

August 19, 2024 0

RTH-AGITATION-A Cry for Survival-Smaller hospitals need support

$#RTH-AGITATION- Rajasthan - Sadly doctors are fighting for their genuine rights and dignity against all. No one is with them - media, judiciary, Government and not even patients whom they have saved. Aspiring doctors should know the reality and introspect- why they wish to be a doctors in such circumstances? Smaller hospital and individual doctors' clinics are backbone of the health care system in India. Their contribution towards public health can’t be ignored. Be it Covid care or treatment of daily ailments, they are actually helpful to the public and indispensable in real sense. Their contribution to society is huge especially in view of broken public health care system. They provide health care near to public near their residential area at affordable cost. From an another angle, they generate employment to the workers as well as small businesses associated with their small hospitals. In a populous country like India, strengthening these smaller hospital is a desirable step. To strengthen the health care, Government can actually do well to support these hospitals and achieve health care to all. Supporting them will require a fraction of resources, as compared to the money needed in case Govt has to provide to public itself. It will be a short-sightedness of the Government policies, if instead of supporting them, Govt wishes to exploit their resources to give free health care to public.$

#RTH-AGITATION- Rajasthan – Sadly doctors are fighting for their genuine rights and dignity against all. No one is with them – media, judiciary, Government and not even patients whom they have saved.

Aspiring doctors should know the reality and introspect- why they wish to be a doctors in such circumstances?

Smaller hospital and individual doctors’ clinics are backbone of the health care system in India. Their contribution towards public health can’t be ignored. Be it Covid care or treatment of daily ailments, they are actually helpful to the public and indispensable in real sense. Their contribution to society is huge especially in view of broken public health care system.

They provide health care near to public near their residential area at affordable cost. From an another angle, they generate employment to the workers as well as small businesses associated with their small hospitals.

In a populous country like India, strengthening these smaller hospital is a desirable step. To strengthen the health care, Government can actually do well to support these hospitals and achieve health care to all. Supporting them will require a fraction of resources, as compared to the money needed in case Govt has to provide to public itself.

It will be a short-sightedness of the Government policies, if instead of supporting them, Govt wishes to exploit their resources to give free health care to public.

But administrators and bureaucratic system has failed on both fronts. Neither they were able to develop a dependable health care system for public, nor they tried to support smaller health systems. What they tried to do was akin to the ancient story of ‘ the farmer and the Golden goose’. The Greedy farmer wanted all the golden eggs instantly without feeding the bird and therefore killed the duck. Government with its short-sighted bureaucracy is killing its golden health care and not realizing the real potential and benefits.

In the present day, ebbed from all sides, doctors need to earn back the dignity of profession and resist oppression. The phenomenon of oppression of doctors in the name of regulation is a global issue. The populist oppressive schemes in the misleading names like #RTH-Rajasthan (RIGHT TO HEALTH) are prevalent everywhere globally in some form or another. Doctors and nurses have been reduced to no more than moral and economical slaves either by industry or administrators, not infrequently pulled by legal bridle in their noses.

Will Rajasthan’s Right to health bill do more harm than Good

Acquiring kind of skill , the years of passionate, merciless, excruciating medical learning is placed at the disposal of administrators, who themselves have failed to develop a good health care system in real sense.

#NO-TO-RTH-AGITATION is a movement , the result of failure of Government to create public health system, but it has potential to fail the existing private doctors’ system as well. Smaller hospitals are already on verge of closure, will be forced to shut down. It carries the risk of extinction of neighbourhood friendly doctor and hospitals.

The basic problem is the intentions for the task of developing a good health care system. The agenda of administration is to control the health care workers rather than developing a good health care system for citizens.

What NO-TO-RTH-AGITATION is actually doing? It is a cry for survival of the smaller hospitals- not only for themselves but for Indian Health care system, if short-sighted bureaucracy can understand the real problem.

Covid paradox: salary cut for doctors other paid at home

Expensive Medical College seat- Is it worth it?

The Myth of cost of spending on medical education needs to be made transparent.

Exorbitantly expensive medical education and lowered merit

March 27, 2023 1

What is wrong with medical profession? Choosing medical career- a mistake?

It is not easy to practice as doctor these days. Media full of doctors bashing, credibility crisis and regulators perpetually hounding doctors, who are forced to work under imposed medicolegal sword. There is no day that passes when system does not perpetuate negativity against medical profession. Doctors, ebbed from all sides, have lost the dignity and independence. Doctors and nurses have been reduced to no more than moral and economical slaves either by industry or administrators, not infrequently pulled by legal bridle in their noses.

The complex medical skill, the years of passionate, merciless excruciating medical learning is placed at the disposal of administrators, who themselves have already failed to develop a good health care system in real sense. Doctors have become soft targets for populist attention mongering and transforming social nuisance into messiah of the deprived by administrators -by sprouting the fraudulent generalities.

All the calculations that usually precede the enslavement of medicine, everything gets discussed by administrators and industry – except the well-being of the doctors and nurses.

Doctors have often wondered at the smugness with which administrators assert their right to enslave them, to control their work, to force their will, to violate their conscience, to stifle their mind. Irony is that while administrators do this, still they depend on the same doctors for saving lives -whose life they have throttled, who resent the treatment meted out to the health care workers.

In todays’ era there has been bullying of doctors by administrative systems, new unreasonable laws, which use pressure tactics on medical professionals to get their own way – no less than enslavement.

Problems faced by doctors are not only innumerable but are also so exceedingly complex that they are difficult to be analysed. Doctors feel so disgusted about the entire system that they do not encourage their children to take up this profession which until now was one of the coveted ones, there must be something going terribly wrong with the profession.

Medical courses are comparatively lengthy and expensive study course and difficult training with slave like duties. “enslavement of doctors”.
Uncertain future for aspiring doctors at time of training: Nowadays, doing just MBBS is not enough and it is important to specialize. Because of lesser seats in post-graduation, poor regulation of medical education, uneven criteria, ultimately very few people get the branch and college of their choice.
Hostile environment for doctors to begin: Suddenly young and bright children complete training and find themselves working in a hostile environment, at the receiving end of public wrath, law, media for reasons they can’t fathom. They face continuous negative publicity, poor infrastructure and preoccupied negative beliefs of society.
Difficult start of career: After a difficult time at medical college, an unsettled family life and with no money, these brilliant doctors begin their struggle. Even before they start earning a penny, the society already has its preconceived notions because of negative media publicity and treats them as cheats and dishonest. Their work is seen with suspicion and often criticised.
The fear and anxiety about the actual treatment, favourable and unfavourable prognosis of patient, keeps mind of a doctor occupied.
Blamed for all malaise: The society gets biased because of the media reports and some celebrity talking glib against medical profession. The blame for inept medical system, administrative failure and complexity of medical industry is conveniently loaded on doctors. These lead to formation of generalised sentiment against all doctors and are then unfortunately blamed for all the malaise in the entire healthcare system.
Personal and family life suffers: Large number of patients with lesser number of doctors is a cause of difficult working circumstances, and the frequent odd hour duties have a very negative impact on the family and personal life of the doctor.
Risk doctoring himself: Repeated exposure to infected patients in addition to long work hours without proper meals make them prone to certain health hazards, like infections which commonly include tuberculosis and other bacterial and viral illnesses. Radiologists get radiation exposure. Because of difficult working conditions, some doctors are prone to depression, anxiety and may start on substance abuse.21 occupational risks to doctors and nurses
Unrealistic expectations of society: Every patient is not salvageable but commonly the relatives do not accept this reality. Pressure is mounted on doctor to do more while alleging that he is not working properly. Allegations of incompetency and negligence are quite common in such circumstances. These painful discussions can go to any extent and a single such relative every day is enough to spoil the mood for the day.
Retrospective analysis of doctor’s every action continues all the life. It could be by patients and relatives every day in the form of “ Why this was not done before?” Everyday irritating discussions, arguments, complaints, disagreements add to further pain and discontentment, in case the patient is not improving. Or it could be by courts and so many regulatory bodies. If unfortunately there is a lawsuit against a doctor, he will be wasting all his time with lawyers and courts, which will takes years to sort out.

The decision taken in emergency will be questioned and in retrospect they may not turn out to be the best one, but later retrospective analysis along with wisdom of hindsight with luxury of time, may be labelled as wrong if a fault-finding approach is used. This along with general sentiment and sympathy with sufferer makes medical profession a sitting duck for lawsuit and punishments. Even if the doctor is proved to be not guilty, his harassment and tarnishing of reputation would be full and almost permanent.

11. Physical assault, routine instances of verbal abuse and threat are common for no fault of theirs. Many become punching bags for the inept medical system and invisible medical industry. Recently, even female doctors have not been spared by mobs. Silence of prominent people, celebrities and society icons on this issue is a pointer towards increasing uncivilized mind-set of society.

12. Medical industry may be rich but not the doctors: The belief that doctor’s is a rich community is not correct. Although decent or average earnings may be there, but earnings of most doctors is still not commiserate with their hard work viz-a-viz other professions. Doctors who also work like investor, a manager or collaborate with industry may be richer. But definitely most of doctors who are just doing medical care are not really rich.

13. Windfall profits for lawyers and law industry at the cost of doctors is a disadvantage for medical profession: zero fee and fixed commission ads on television by lawyers in health systems are a common advertisement to harass doctors. They lure patients to file law suits and promise them hefty reimbursements. There is no dearth of such relatives, lawyers who are ready to try their luck, sometimes in vengeance and sometimes for lure of money received in compensations. This encouragement and instigation of lawsuit against doctors is a major disadvantage for medical profession.

14. Overall, a complex scenario for doctors: There is increasing discontentment among doctors because of this complex and punishing system. They are bound by so many factors that they finally end up at the receiving end all the time. They are under Hippocratic oath and therefore expected to work with very high morality, goodwill and kindness for the sufferings of mankind and dying patients. They are also supposed to maintain meticulous documentation and also supposed to work under norms of medical industry. They are supposed to see large number of patients with fewer staff and nursing support while still giving excellent care in these circumstances. And if these were not enough, the fear of courts and medico-legal cases, verbal threats, abuses, and physical assaults and show of distrust by patient and relatives further makes working difficult.

In this era, a thought is gradually getting prevalent-‘Is choosing medical career or becoming a doctor is a mistake?

Covid paradox: salary cut for doctors other paid at home

Expensive Medical College seat- Is it worth it?

The Myth of cost of spending on medical education needs to be made transparent.

Exorbitantly expensive medical education and lowered merit

March 26, 2023 0

Medical Education #NEET & Termite of Corruption, Legalities, Touts

Med admission season sees flood of legal cases Our society has failed itself to develop a robust system of choosing and nurturing good doctors and therefore itself responsible for decline in standards of medical profession. Therefore the quality of doctors who survive and flourish in such system will be a natural consequence of how society chooses and nurtures the best for themselves. A complicated admission process of NEET counselling has spawned a micro industry of medical education counsellors- nothing more than mediators and touts. Imagine, an opportunity is available to a patient, to decide the doctor as based on his route or marks for entry into medical college. Whether patient will like to get treated by a doctor, who secured 20% marks, 30 % marks or 60% marks or 80% marks for medical college. Even an illiterate person can answer that well. But strangely for selection of doctors, rules were framed so as to dilute the merit to the minimum possible. What is the need to dilute and shortlist around half a million for few thousand seats? Answer to that is simple. To select and find only those students from millions, who can pay millions to become doctors?

Our society has failed itself to develop a robust system of choosing and nurturing good doctors and therefore itself responsible for decline in standards of medical profession. Therefore the quality of doctors who survive and flourish in such system will be a natural consequence of how society chooses and nurtures the best for themselves.

A complicated admission process of NEET counselling has spawned a micro industry of medical education counsellors- nothing more than mediators and touts.

Imagine, an opportunity is available to a patient, to decide the doctor as based on his route or marks for entry into medical college. Whether patient will like to get treated by a doctor, who secured 20% marks, 30 % marks or 60% marks or 80% marks for medical college. Even an illiterate person can answer that well. But strangely for selection of doctors, rules were framed so as to dilute the merit to the minimum possible. What is the need to dilute and shortlist around half a million for few thousand seats? Answer to that is simple. To select and find only those students from millions, who can pay millions to become doctors?

Doctors are just as offshoots of a tree called as society. They essentially are the same as rest of the society. It is a specialized branch of tree which helps other offshoots of tree to save others. As part of same tree, they resemble the parent society, of which they are part. Society needs to choose and nurture a force of doctors carefully with an aim to combat for safety of its own people.

Exorbitantly expensive medical education and lowered merit has hollowed the quality of doctors like termite. Aspiring doctors are now forced to pay exorbitant fee, in millions. Many go under heavy debt to pay medical colleges fee. Children with lower ranks in merit pay millions and can become doctors. The real problem here is that real deserving will be left out.

Medical students from the very onset, are victims and witness to these practices and exploitation. They see their parents pay this unreasonable fee through their noses or take loans. Such blatant injustice will have an everlasting effect on the young impressionable minds.

The paradox- Society and armchair preachers give doctors lessons about corruption and exploitation.

Medical admission season sees flood of legal cases

Mumbai TIMES OF INDIA: Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud, while speaking at a recent event in a Delhi hospital, called for reforms in medical education, referring to the sheer volume of cases that have made their way to the Supreme Court. It is no exaggeration, as the Directorate of General of Health Services’ Medical Counselling Committee (MCC), under the umbrella body of the union ministry of health and family welfare, alone has to deal with nearly 400 cases every year. From high courts to the apex court, the admission season is marred by litigation, from students aspiring to be doctors to doctors aspiring to be specialists and super-specialists. Sometimes, there are other stakeholders too and the stakes are indeed high. The National Eligibility and Entrance Test (NEET) for undergraduate courses, for instance. In the past four years, the number of MBBS aspirants registering for the test rose almost by 25%. Around 17.6 lakh students appeared for NEET-UG in 2022 —the highest for any competitive exam. On the contrary, the number of aspirants for engineering (registering for JEE-Main) dropped in the corresponding four years—from 11.5 lakh in 2019 to 9.05 lakh in 2022. If one takes into account the direct ratio of students to medical seats, 33 are vying for a single seat in a government college. It is further skewed if one considers the pool of seats in each category. The number of seats shrink at PG level. “The competition is fierce for students in the lower rank bracket. Eligibility issues are also a concern in lawsuits. There is a lot of emphasis on students bagging a PG degree, from parents, even colleges.

More students going for higher studies give colleges brownie points in the accreditation process. There is a general sense of feeling that only an MBBS degree is of no consequence. After all of it, if students lose their seat over a technical point, they will prefer moving court over losing a year, he said. Even as thousands of students appear for their NEET-PG today, courts saw several litigation seeking postponement of the exam till last week. “There is no uniformity in the schedule followed by different states, even as there is one central exam for all. Students have to mandatorily complete their internship to be eligible for a PG seat, but the internship deadline in states differ. What is the point of completing the exam in March and waiting till July for the counselling round? Such policy decisions are not student-friendly, and therefore are met with opposition,” said parent representative. Former member (board of governor), erstwhile Medical Council of India and dean (projects) at Tata Memorial Hospital, Dr Kailash Sharma, said clarity from National Medical Commission, from MCC, government of India, is expected. “Similar cases in lower courts should be bundled and heard by the apex court that will also reduce time on each case,” said Sharma. Meanwhile, a complicated admission process has spawned a micro industry of medical education counsellors. The process is complicated for an 18-year old to manage on his own.

Covid paradox: salary cut for doctors other paid at home

Expensive Medical College seat- Is it worth it?

The Myth of cost of spending on medical education needs to be made transparent.

Exorbitantly expensive medical education and lowered merit

March 5, 2023 0

Selling of the Medical Seats near Bubble Burst: lower percentiles #NEET

Now, super specialty medical seat cut-offs slashed to 20 percentile MUMBAI: Post-graduate doctors scoring as low as 20 percentile in NEET-SS will now be eligible for superspecialty seats in the country. Despite two rounds of admissions, over one-fifth of the seats in the courses are lying vacant. To ensure these seats do not go wasted, the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences slashed the cut-offs to 20 percentile from 50. In some of the courses, the raw scores for eligibility have dropped even to 188 or 217 out of 600. 2/10/23, 6:39 PM Now, superspecialty medical seat cut-offs slashed to 20 percentile.

Lowering NEET Percentile In PG or SS Making seats available at a lower percentile (15 -20) in post graduate and Super specialities courses will jeopardize the already crumbling quality of Medical Education and will result in bidding for the seats.

This potpourri portends to be a travesty of quality, not just of medical education but more seriously, of the quality of doctors. Allotment of medical seats is being left to the vagaries of populism and commercialism, through a false sense ‘the illusion of merit’ secured via NEET. Admission criteria whittled down to mere 10-20 percent, will result in an irreversible and regressive compromise with quality of doctors. Will patients approve such dizzying choice and at what cost?

Going by selection of candidates as doctors, if given a choice, by which a patient will like to get treated? A candidate who scored 20 % marks or a person getting 60% or 80% marks. NEET eligibility getting lower and a candidate getting around 20 % of marks may be able to secure a degree to treat patients. What will be the deciding factor? The criteria as to why a person with 60% marks not getting a seat and another with 20% marks will be able to secure. It will depend upon, whether a candidate is able to pay the exorbitant fee or not. Present system and mechanism of admission permit and accept such huge variation! That strange equation is acceptable in lieu of money paid!

Lowering NEET Percentile In PG or SS is an illusion of merit. Overplayed narrative of fewer doctors in the country, rather than a system for proper utilization is an effort to increase numbers of doctors is associated with dilution of merit. But this goal needs to be achieved with preserving quality of medical education.

Selling the medical seats is heading towards bubble burst, when despite declining demand for poor quality and expensive medical education, new private colleges being approved along with lowering merit to a dismal percentage.

Future doctors getting admissions by scoring just 10-20 percent of marks, poor teacher student ratio, seats being awarded to highest bidder are few pointers to the poor quality of medical education. Few years back NEET percent system was changed to percentile and now the bar is lowered further, just to accommodate more ‘bidders’ with less marks, to be able to buy medical seats.

Now, super specialty medical seat cut-offs slashed to 20 percentile

MUMBAI: Post-graduate doctors scoring as low as 20 percentile in NEET-SS will now be eligible for superspecialty seats in the country. Despite two rounds of admissions, over one-fifth of the seats in the courses are lying vacant. To ensure these seats do not go wasted, the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences slashed the cut-offs to 20 percentile from 50. In some of the courses, the raw scores for eligibility have dropped even to 188 or 217 out of 600. 2/10/23, 6:39 PM Now, superspecialty medical seat cut-offs slashed to 20 percentile.

On February 8, the board issued a circular announcing the special mop-up round in NEET-SS counselling and also the revised cut-offs in different specialty groups. The schedule for the mop-up round will be released soon. An official from the ministry of health and family welfare said that approximately 1,000 seats are vacant out of close to 5,000 superspecialty seats in the country. The Federation of Resident Doctors’ Association India had requested the Centre to relax the eligibility criteria to ensure there is no wastage of seats, after receiving representations from aspirants, said Dr Kulsaurabh Kaushik, a member. He said sometimes seats go vacant in private colleges because of higher fees. Dr Avinash Supe, former dean of KEM Hospital, said, “Total SS seats in the country have gone up tremendously in recent years and students have become selective. For instance, in the surgical group, many are now preferring urology, gastrointestinal (GI) surgery and surgical oncology, whereas there is not much demand for paediatric, or cardiovascular and thoracic surgery. You need larger set-ups for these, which many cannot invest in. On the contrary, urology and GI surgeries need smaller set-ups and there is a demand too,” said Supe. He added in some courses, supply is higher than demand in the country. For a long time, even KEM did not get students for courses such as paediatric surgery. Last year, the Centre brought down the cut-off to 15 percentile after seats remained vacant in superspecialty courses.

Covid paradox: salary cut for doctors other paid at home

Expensive Medical College seat- Is it worth it?

The Myth of cost of spending on medical education needs to be made transparent.

February 10, 2023 0

Comparison of AIIMS (medical) and IIT (Engineer) graduate with 5 years invested. Do doctors deserve better salaries?

Comparison of AIIMS (medical) and IIT (engineer) graduate with 5 years invested. Why doctors do not deserve better salaries? Let us compare the start of career for medical and engineering graduates. To have a balance, comparing apples to apples, comparison of AIIMS graduates (premier institute –medical) to IIT graduates (Premier institute -Engineering) looks justified. This goes without any need to emphasize that students selected in both are exceptionally brilliant and toppers of the country. Although this comparison is not a secret and everyone knows about it, but still it need an attention from a different point of view. It should be an eye opener not only to medical students or aspiring doctors but to the society as well. It projects the severe disparity to an extent of blatant injustice towards medical students. When engineering students after a course of 4 years (at 21 years of age )are placed with package of 1.2 to 3.6 crores (1-4 lakh dollars), the medical students are starting with internship. Medical students still need to study for at least 5 years more (at 21 years of age ) to start earning maximum 12 -15 lakh per annum

Let us compare the start of career for medical and engineering graduates. To have a balance, comparing apples to apples, comparison of AIIMS graduates (premier institute –medical) to IIT graduates (Premier institute -Engineering) looks justified. This goes without any need to emphasize that students selected in both are exceptionally brilliant and toppers of the country.

Although this comparison is not a secret and everyone knows about it, but still it need an attention from a different point of view. It should be an eye opener not only to medical students or aspiring doctors but to the society as well. It projects the severe disparity to an extent of blatant injustice towards medical students.

When engineering students after a course of 4 years (at 21 years of age )are placed with package of 1.2 to 3.6 crores (1-4 lakh dollars), the medical students are starting with internship. Medical students still need to study for at least 5 years more (at 21 years of age ) to start earning maximum 12 -15 lakh per annum ( 15 thousand dollars). It may be raised to 24-30 lakhs (30000 dollars) per annum after 10 years, still one tenth of their contemporaries from IIT. Remember we are talking about only premier institutes, what happens to others is still a matter of luck.

When engineering students earn crores, do jobs and get experience about the real world, medical students are worrying about the problems, which should not have been there in the first place. The common issues bogging down the medical students are trying to get into post graduate courses, inhuman duties lasting 24-48 hours, payment of unjustified fee of medical colleges, trying to fend off bond policies, court cases, bearing with assault on doctors, working in poor and inept health care infrastructure- just to name a few. With all these problems lingering for years, doctors remain unwise in worldly matters, financially illiterate and sitting ducks for punishments due to excessive regulation and unjustified moral burden.

This comparison is essential to be kept in mind by aspiring doctors when they choose medical career. The respect and money associated with the hard work to be a good doctor is no more available even to the best.

A Point to ponder for everyone, what is the reason for such disparity? Why doctors do not deserve better salaries? What is the need for aspiring doctors to choose lowly paid jobs for more hard work and more noble work? A fodder for thought for society and administrators as well.

IIT hiring: Domestic offer hits record Rs 1.8 crore

MUMBAI: After a lull in the first pandemic year, crore-plus job packages returned with a bang on premier IIT campuses. On the opening day of the season, several IITians entered the crore-plus salary club, as the highest domestic package touched an all-time high of Rs 1.8 crore and international offers crossed the Rs 2 crore mark. While Uber picked one student each from at least five IITs, including IITBombay and Madras, for a package of Rs 2.05 crore (or $274,000), one student at IIT-Roorkee received an international offer of Rs 2.15 crore ($287,550) and three others got domestic offers ranging from Rs 1.30 crore to Rs 1.8 crore. In the first slot at IITB, the highest offer after Uber came from cloud data management company Rubrik, with a Rs 90.6 lakh (or $121,000) package. Of the domestic roles, investment management firm Millennium picked students for a package of Rs 62 lakh in the first slot, while WorldQuant offered Rs 52.7 lakh and Blackstone Rs 46.6 lakh. IIT-Madras students get 176 offers in first session on day 1 ALSO READ IIT-BHU student bags Rs 2 crore package from US company in placement . The highest numbers of domestic offers were made by Google, Microsoft, Qualcomm, Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Airbus and Bain & Company. IT/software, core engineering and consulting were the leading sectors to hire from the institute in the first slot. As many as 11 international offers were made at IIT-Madras on day one, said professor CS Shankar Ram, adviser (training and placement), IIT Madras. The institute recorded 407 offers in the first session of the placements, its best ever, including 231 PPOs. In all, 11 students received offers that crossed Rs 1 crore and of them 10 got domestic offers and 13 students signed up for an international offer, of which 12 opted for packages less than Rs 1 crore to take up jobs in Japan and Singapore.

Record Rs 3.6cr offers to 3 from Delhi, Bombay, Madras IITs for Hong Kong posting

MUMBAI: Hong Kong and Singapore seems to be the destinations where IITians are heading to this placement season, with most big-ticket offers being offered by trading firms there. Jane Street, a quantitative trading firm, has picked at least one student each from IIT-Bombay, Delhi and Kanpur for its Hong Kong office for a record package of Rs 3.6 crore. These, however, were made as pre-placement offers (PPOs) before the season kicked off on December 1. Another high-frequency trading firm Quantbox Research has made an offer of Rs 1.6 crore at multiple IITs for its Singapore office. one IIT-Bombay student, there are other PPOs that have made offers to students of close to Rs 2 crore,” said a source at IIT-B. On-campus job offers have not touched the Rs 2 crore mark. “There are several Rs 1 crore job offers and there are 15 companies with international locations, On the first day of placements, IIT-Bombay had 46 companies interviewing candidates either online or in-person. Of the 250 job offers on Day 1, more than 175 were accepted. On Day 2, a total of 48 companies were at IIT-B. The highest package so far this year domestically is Rs 1.9 crore, while there are a good number of packages from international recruiters as well.

Covid paradox: salary cut for doctors other paid at home

Expensive Medical College seat- Is it worth it?

The Myth of cost of spending on medical education needs to be made transparent.

December 4, 2022 1

Assault on a Woman Doctor #Kerala: Medics Serving Uncivilized Society with Poor Law & Order

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM- Kerala: The assault on a woman doctor at Thiruvananthapuram Government Medical College has made doctors preparing for a career in the medical profession worried. A bystander kicked the woman doctor on her lower abdomen in front of an ICU in the middle of the night on November 23. The CCTV visuals showed that she was surrounded by a group of bystanders.

The physical assault on a lady doctor reflects that doctors are serving an uncivilized society. Such news is viewed by medical community anxiously and is definitely a poor advertisement for younger generation to take medicine as profession.

Strangely media, courts, prominent people, celebrities, human right commission, woman right activists and women commission are little concerned about the blatant injustice done towards doctors. This again brings forth the hypocrisy of these people and organizations, who otherwise cry hoarse about woman rights and empowerment. Whenever a female is assaulted, there is an outrage but the same support is not extended to a female if she is a doctor. Such bestiality should create havoc in minds of civilized people but this apathy to such incidents clearly indicates otherwise. Have we become so uncivilized that an incident such as this just remains as a small news item in a local paper? Can’t we see that such incidents are harbinger of many more in future? It is important to realize that this is the time to unify and condemn such episodes vehemently and prominently so that the miscreants realize that they cannot get away with it.

Brutality against doctors reveals a deep prejudice and lawlessness, merely on the basis of perceived negligence. Government is either unwilling to act and establish a strong culture of deterrence, so justice been elusive for medical professionals.

Even murderous assaults on doctors are not enough to shake administrators, courts and doctors’ organizations out of slumber. Definitely such violence, if unabated will be poor advertisement for next generation to take medical profession as a first choice.

A notion has been propagated that assaulting a doctor under emotional outburst to be taken as normal and should not be punished.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The assault on a woman doctor at Thiruvananthapuram Government Medical College has made doctors preparing for a career in the medical profession worried. A bystander kicked the woman doctor on her lower abdomen in front of an ICU in the middle of the night on November 23. The CCTV visuals showed that she was surrounded by a group of bystanders. She survived the attack and is recuperating. But the incident has left her shattered. “I am reconsidering my decision to become a neurosurgeon and even the career of a doctor,” she told Sulphi N, IMA state president, when he visited her in the hospital.The Kerala Medical Post Graduate Association has taken up her cause and demanded justice.

They are worried that such attacks would happen again and there would be a new victim. “It is unnerving that such attacks happen in medical colleges which are supposed to be a secure location. What will happen to us if we go to peripheral hospitals for practice,” said Dr Ruwise E A, Thiruvananthapuram unit president of Kerala Medical Post Graduate Association.He came to know from police officers that an arrest was unlikely on Friday and the accused was trying to secure bail. “The government should have arrested the culprit immediately and sent a message to the public that such attacks are not tolerated,” said Dr Ruwise.KMPGA plans to strengthen the strike if there is no arrest till Sunday. The doctors association has extended support to the protest by residents. “We cannot leave the students alone on this issue. It was an assault on a woman who was doing her duty. If it was a senior doctor who received such a kick on the lower abdomen he or she would not have survived the attack,” said Dr Nirmal Bhaskar, state president of Kerala Government Medical College Teachers Association (KGMCTA).The doctors share their angst as there was not enough support from government and society even when the attacks keep repeating. They did not take the Facebook post by Health Minister Veena George condemning the attack seriously.There are health experts who think that a multi-pronged approach is necessary to prevent such attacks. It involves reducing the crowd by strengthening peripheral hospitals, increasing staff and providing better security.“The government health system has become an easy target nowadays. Such attacks do not happen in private hospitals where bystanders pay the remaining hospital bills without uttering a word of protest even after the patient could not be rescued,” said Dr Althaf A, secretary of IMA, Thiruvananthapuram branch. He pointed out that there are no trained administrative cadres to manage a 4,000-bed MCH. All of this is managed by a superintendent who is also a professor with teaching responsibilities.

Covid paradox: salary cut for doctors other paid at home

Expensive Medical College seat- Is it worth it?

The Myth of cost of spending on medical education needs to be made transparent.

November 27, 2022 2

SC Rejects Greedy decision by Govt & Private Medical College-Fee Hike

The Supreme Court set aside an Andhra Pradesh government order of 2017 prescribing a seven-fold increase in MBBS fees that made it ₹24 lakh per annum.

The Supreme Court in a judgment on Monday held that education is not a business to earn profit as it set aside an Andhra Pradesh government order of 2017 prescribing a seven-fold increase in MBBS fees that made it ₹24 lakh per annum.

Directing the private colleges to refund the amount collected in excess of the fees last fixed by the state government in 2011, a bench of justices MR Shah and Sudhanshu Dhulia said, “Education is not the business to earn profit. The tuition fee shall always be affordable.”

The order came on a petition filed by the Narayana Medical College challenging a September 2019 decision of the Andhra Pradesh high court striking down the fee increase and ordering refund to students admitted in the college since the academic year 2017-18. The apex court dismissed the petition with cost of ₹5 lakh to be borne equally by the petitioner college and state government and deposited in court within six weeks. The amount was directed for use in legal services by the Supreme Court Mediation and Conciliation Committee and the National Legal Services Authority.

The top court agreed with the conclusion made by the high court and said, “To enhance the fee to ₹24 lakh per annum, I.e., seven times more than the fee fixed earlier was not justifiable at all.” The aggrieved medical students who had to pay through their nose had said that the government order raising the fees issued on September 6, 2017 was done without awaiting the recommendation of the Admission and Fee Regulatory Committee (AFRC).

The bench held the order passed by the state government to be “wholly impermissible and most arbitrary”. The court even went to the extent of saying that the hike was done “only with a view to favour or oblige the private medical colleges.”

“Any enhancement of the tuition fee without the recommendation of the AFRC shall be contrary to the decision of this court in case of P.A Inamdar in 2005 and the relevant provisions of the 2006 AFRC Rules (prevailing in the state). The high court has rightly quashed and set aside the GO dated September 6, 2017.”

The students pointed out that in 2011, the tuition fee hike was introduced by the state after consulting AFRC. However, in 2019, the state acted solely on representations received from private medical colleges. Rule 4 of the Admission and Fee Regulatory Committee (for Professional Courses offered in Private, Unaided Professional Institutions) Rules, 2006 mandated the state to seek a prior report from AFRC before altering the fee.

This rule required AFRC to factor in the location of the institution, nature of professional course, cost of available infrastructure, expenditure on administration and maintenance, reasonable surplus required for growth and development of the institution, revenue foregone on account of waiver of fee in respect of students from reserved category or economically weaker sections (EWS) of the society.

The top court said, “Determination of fee/review of fee shall be within the parameters of the fixation rules and shall have the direct nexus on the factors mentioned in Rule 4 of the 2006 Rules…the state government enhanced the tuition fee at an exorbitant rate of ₹24 lakh per annum, almost seven times the tuition fee notified for the previous block period.”

The next question arose regarding refund as ordered by the high court in its order of September 24, 2019. The high court said that the colleges cannot take benefit of the unjust enrichment in fees that was wrongly increased. Accordingly, it asked the colleges to refund the students after adjusting the amounts payable under the earlier fee structure recommended by AFRC and issued in June 2011.

The bench upheld this part of the high court order and said, “The medical colleges are the beneficiaries of the illegal GO which is rightly set aside by the high court.” The bench was conscious of the hardships faced by students who arranged to pay the amount by obtaining loan from banks and financial institutions at high rate of interest. “The management cannot be permitted to retain the amount recovered or collected pursuant to the illegal GO,” it held.

The college told the Supreme Court that between 2011 and 2017, they incurred added expenses due to the requirement introduced in 2016 to pay stipend to students even as the fee remained unchanged since 2011. The bench told the college that this component would be compensated as and when the higher tuition fee is fixed by AFRC. However, the court did not permit the college to retain the illegally collected amount.

Covid paradox: salary cut for doctors other paid at home

Expensive Medical College seat- Is it worth it?