After students complaint, NMC says will to recognize multiple skill enhancement PG courses

New Delhi: The top medical education regulator plans to recognize post-doctoral certificate courses in medical specializations such as paediatric endocrinology, laboratory immunology, spine surgery and critical care after complaints by post-grad medical students.

While these courses are taught in medical colleges and hospitals, they are currently not recognized by the National Medical Commission (NMC). 

Now, the regulator has written to all medical schools to include these courses as post-doctoral certificates, post-doctoral fellowship, doctor of medicine, and master of chirurgiae (surgery).

The NMC’s recognition of medical qualification regulations, 2023, prescribes the procedure for inclusion of new medical qualifications. 

“These are the specialist training courses which medical students pursue after MBBS. All over India there are around 37 such courses in some of the medical colleges for which they charge around ₹15-20 lakh from the students just for giving clinical exposure. However, even after the student has completed these skill enhancement courses, their qualification is not registered. Right now, most of the corporate hospitals are doing such courses and are not regulated,” an official said aware of the matter.

Also read: Thesis approval not a must for postgraduate medical students to sit in exams, says NMC

The medical institutions that wish to run such courses onwards have to apply to the medical education regulator’s PGMEB for which they have to pay ₹250,000 per qualification.

The health ministry has increased the number of medical colleges, MBBS and PG seats to make availability of doctors in the healthcare system.

There is an increase of 5.92% in PG seats from 69,024 in 2023-24 to 73,111 in 2024-25. During the last ten years, the number of PG seats increased by 39,460 from 2013-14 (31,185 seats) to 2024-25 (73,111 seats).

Similarly, there has been 98% increase in medical colleges from 387 in 2013-14 to 766 in 2024-25. Presently there are 766 medical colleges, out of which govt are 423 while 343 are private medical colleges in the country.

Queries sent to the health ministry spokesperson remained unanswered.

Also read: Govt drafts SoP to regulate clinical research organizations