Medical Education Special POSTGRADUATE STUDIES
I
f gaining admission for MBBS is
tough, it’s twice times more tough to
get a postgraduate seat. The number
of MBBS seats is around 70,000
while the number of postgraduate seats
is only half of that. According to the
Ministry of Health and Family Welfare,
77 MD/MS programmes are offered at
medical colleges and the total postgrad-
uate (PG) seats is 37,630 (including
4454 in Institutes of National Impor-
tance) till November 2018.
A positive move
As postgraduate (PG) seats were
rare, a number of postgraduate aspir-
ants would settle for PG Diploma pro-
grammes or Diplomate in National
Board (DNB) programmes which are
offered in hospitals with adequate
WHEN
SPECIALIZATIONS
MATTER
As the race to garner a postgraduate seat gets hotter, there
is reason to cheer as a large number of PG diploma seats
get upgraded and Diplomate in National Board (DNB) gets
equivalence with postgraduate degree
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write the thesis and it is the same
case with MS and MD students while
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Dr. Subrat Mohapatra,
Fellow in Spine Surgery, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhiinfrastructure. However, the disadvan-
tage was that a PG Diploma and a DNB
were not considered at par with MS/
MD programmes.
There is reason to cheer for such stu-
dents as the MCI has granted equiva-
lence status to DNB programmes, mak-
ing them at par with MD/MS, provided
the students have completed their
programme from a 500-bedded hospi-
tal. As per the Ministry of Health and
Family Welfare, the number of DNB
seats, which are equivalent to MD/MS,
is 6737 as on October 30, 2018.
“A person who is doing DNB has to
write the thesis and it is the same case
with MS and MD students while those
doing diploma programs need not write
a thesis. After the equivalence status
was given to DNB, the scope is definitelywider,” says Dr. Subrat Mohapatra, Fel-
low in Spine Surgery with All India
Institute of Medical Sciences, New
Delhi, who had completed his DNB in
Orthopaedics.
The move to make DNB progammes
at par with PG programmes will also
help to reduce faculty shortage. “Ear-
lier diploma courses with extra years
of experience were considered for the
faculty positions and what we need in