DMER to create 1,149 posts of senior resident doctors

NAGPUR: Under pressure from the Medical Council of India (MCI), the directorate of medical education and research (DMER) has started the process of creating posts of senior residents for all the government medical colleges in the state. A total of 1,149 posts would be created to meet theMCI norms in all the 14 colleges.
The medical education ministry has already cleared the proposal. A meeting in this regard was scheduled for Wednesday with the finance department. But it was cancelled as the chief minister and the finance secretary had to rush to Delhi for an urgent work.
All these years MCI had not raised the issue of senior residents. But in the last few inspections it had warned the medical colleges of cancelling recognition for want of senior residents. Maharashtra had been specifically playing hide and seek with MCI on the issue by transferring staff from one college to the other during inspections. But the present adhoc MCI body made it clear that the colleges must have senior residents (post-graduate resident doctors) who can not only perform the job of specialists in absence of senior professor and associate professors but will also help improve the overall health services in the hospitals of medical colleges.
DMER acting director Dr Pravin Shingare told TOI that medical education minister Vijay Kumar Gavit has been pursuing the issue of shortage of teachers and residents too seriously since June when DMER submitted a proposal to the ministry. asThanks to his efforts that the state government has for the first time agreed to create posts for senior residents in all colleges depending on their seats and the units in the hospital. Each unit has about 30 beds and needs one resident,a? he said. Shingare said DMER was to meet the finance department in this connection on Wednesday. But the meeting has been rescheduled.
There are two ways of creating the senior residentsa posts. In clinical subjects like surgery and gynaecology, the posts are directly created. In non-clinical subjects they are called as a?tutorsa. So, DMER is creating 582 posts of senior residents and 567 posts of tutors making a total of 1,149. Till now, all the round-the-clock services in medical colleges are being run by 2,500 junior residents (medical graduates with MBBS degree).
At present, except for one post in plastic surgery at the Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH) in Nagpur and 20 posts in Grant Medical College and JJ Hospital in Mumbai, the medical colleges do not have senior residents.
Senior residents and tutors posts to be created in medical college
Grant Medical College and JJ Hospital, Mumbai, BJ Medical College, Pune and GMCH, Nagpur with 200 seats will all get 69 posts of senior residents and 52 tutors each
Aurangabad will get 36 residents and 51 tutors and Solapur medical colleges would get 39 senior residents and 42 tutors each
IGMC, Nagpur and medical colleges at Meeraj, Yavatmal, Latur, Akola and Kolhapur with 100 seats would get 39 senior residents and 42 tutors each
The colleges with 50 seats at Dhule, Nanded and Ambajogai will have 22 senior residents and 22 tutors each