Post Graduate medical students to serve in districts for three months

Struggling for years to find doctors for the districts, the Medical Council of India (MCI) has made it mandatory for post-graduate medical students to serve three months in a district as part of their academic programme.

The District Residency Programme, notified by the Board of Governors of MCI this week, would start from the 2020-21 academic programme.

The PG medical colleges and MCI will work together to create a rotation system for the students in the 3rd, 4th, or 5th semester and place them in the districts.

India has one doctor for every 1,445 individuals, which is lower than the World Health Organization standard doctor-patient ratio of 1:1,000, as per the government data presented in the Parliament.

But the majority of the doctors are located in the metropolis or at least in urban centres leaving the smaller towns and rural India bereft of expert medical advice. Several past efforts to infuse doctors in the districts and rural India have failed.

The MCI board has now finalised the district residency programme under which the MD/MS students will serve either in a district hospital or any other facility identified by the district administration.

They will receive their salary of stipend from the medical college subject to the attendance evidence provided by the district administration.

Those pursuing the post-graduate programmes in clinical specialities will be posted in units concerned at district hospitals or other health care units whereas the students of pre and para-clinical specialities like anatomy, microbiology, forensic science, community medicine, pathology, physiology and pharmacology can serve the district health administration in diagnostic service, public health programmes, pharmacy, forensic service, and general clinical duties.