India’s specialty medical courses lack uniform standards. Regulator plans to fix it





New Delhi: The National Medical Commission (NMC) is planning to set up committees of experts to review the postgraduate curriculum to lift the standard of specialty courses offered in India to global levels.

The apex medical education regulator’s Post-Graduate Medical Education Board will set up a Specialty Expert Committee (SEC) for each postgraduate specialty to “enhance the quality and uniformity”, Dr B. Srinivas, secretary at the NMC, said in a communication to all the medical colleges under its ambit–Mint has reviewed the letter.

“These committees will be responsible for preparing a model curriculum and developing specialty specific assessment forms for assessing institutes, besides addressing other academic requirements of specialties,” Dr Srinivas said.

The team of experts will also hear students’ grievances and address other requirements. The NMC has sought the names of faculties across various specialties willing to contribute towards this initiative within 15 days.

“India is trying to increase the medical manpower, both at graduate and postgraduate level, so that more and more specialists are available because of the skewed ratios which we have in terms of doctor-patient ratios,” said Dr Aashish Chaudhry, managing director of Delhi-based Aakash Healthcare multispecialy hospital. “So this is a welcome step to have a uniformity in the quality of PG education being delivered across the country.”

The total number of postgraduate medical seats in India has surged about 127% since 2013-14 to 73,111 in 2024-25, according to the health ministry data. The count rose about 6% over the previous fiscal 2023-24.

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Global standards

“We are trying to create a repository of best PG experts or faculties who will be part of SEC for one year and so on. They will make the comprehensive curriculum of each [of the] specialties —for example, medicine, cardiology etc,” Dr Srinivas told Mint. “This step will be democratic in nature; curriculum will be more advanced. This practice is followed internationally. In fact, the US has ‘Specialty boards’. But we are calling it SEC, and they will do the same sort of work.”

“The PG faculties or experts will act as messengers for us. They will give the on-ground information to us because they are teaching the students,” Dr Srinivas said. They will suggest improvements as and when required. Basically, a net is being created across the PG specialties,” he said.

There are almost 50 specialties in PG and the NMC plans to take around 5-6 experts from each.

“We will be taking experts from all over the country such as from district hospitals, medical colleges and private ones. This is a transparent step and improves the standard of PG medical education as we will have more eyes and ears now,” said Dr Srinivas.

According to Dr Chaudhry of Aakash Healthcare, the the major challenge is the availability of trained faculty or the teachers who can impart training on both the academic aspect as well as the practical knowhow of handling patients in a particular specialty. “That’s something which the NMC has to solve. How do we motivate the teachers to take up the academic role and along with that doing the clinical practice?”

Also, given the lack of uniformity in training across India, people coming from various states may have different set of training, he said.

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