New Delhi: The National Medical Commission issued guidelines that are to be met by the government and private medical colleges to start PG medical courses. These hospitals should have at least 220 beds and up to five active departments to offer PG courses.
The NMC published the draft of the guidelines in September last year and sought opinions and suggestions from the public. As per a guideline, at least 80 percent of the beds should be occupied by patients throughout the year. Meanwhile, 15 percent of the beds in the hospitals that aim to begin PG courses should be reserved for the ICU.
Besides, the hospitals should be equipped to store the details of the patients and the lab reports in digital format. Moreover, departments like biochemistry, pathology, microbiology, radiodiagnosis, and anaesthesiology should compulsorily open labs or centres.
The guidelines suggest that medical colleges should arrange digital libraries and departmental libraries too. At least sixty outpatients should visit major departments like general medicine, general surgery, paediatrics, orthopaedics, gynaecology, ophthalmology, psychiatry and emergency medicine daily. Only then would the hospital get permission to admit two PG students in each department.
Meanwhile, there should be at least thirty outpatients in other departments and superspecialty departments. There should be a rise of up to 20 percent in the number of patients visiting the hospital in order to increase one seat. The draft guideline suggested that there should be fifty patients in all the departments, except general medical. However, the number of patients was raised in the final notification.
Government medical colleges and private colleges that have been functioning for over fifteen years should have one professor or associate professor for three students. However, in private medical colleges, there should be two professors for one student. Meanwhile, for the superspeciality courses, two students should have one professor and an associate professor.