This story is from April 30, 2019

Junior docs blow whistle on ghost faculty at Suryapet medical college

Even as inspections by the Medical Council of India (MCI) were underway at Suryapet Medical College on Monday, junior doctors alleged that fake faculty members were being passed off as faculty members by the college management.
Junior docs blow whistle on ghost faculty at Suryapet medical college
HYDERABAD: Even as inspections by the Medical Council of India (MCI) were underway at Suryapet Medical College on Monday, junior doctors alleged that fake faculty members were being passed off as faculty members by the college management.
The inspection is meant for according permission for running medical courses for the academic year 2019-20 at the college.
“The management of Suryapet Medical College is showing medical officers under the directorate of health as faculty members.
Although medical colleges should recruit all faculty members as per the required strength and then go for inspections, a few medical colleges are not doing this. Instead of recruiting regular faculty members, colleges are resorting to shortcut ways like showing medical officers of primary health centres (PHCs) as faculty members,” said Dr PS Vijayender Goud, president Telangana Junior Doctors Association (TJUDA). Blaming a similar passing off of non-faculty staff as faculty, TJUDA further said that earlier too inspections at RIMS Adilabad were cleared in a similar way. “The government had used the same logic to obtain clearance for MCI inspection at RIMS Adilabad. They had shown practising doctors in and around Adilabad as faculty,” the TJUDA said in a statement on Monday.
The MCI’s approval had been previously sought for launching MBBS courses at Suryapet Medical College for the academic year 2019-20. The college was sanctioned with a total strength of 300 seats previously sanctioned by the state health department. “The application had been sent to the MCI last year and officials are hoping to get clearance after the inspections. With the addition of 300 seats, the total strength of medical seats in the state is expected to touch 1,400 in total,” said an insider from the state health department.
However, despite increasing the number of seats, the presence of ghost faculty on paper actually pulls down the overall standards of doctors passing out from the medical colleges. In certain instances, even fake infrastructure is used to obtain clearances, for example, medical equipment is hired for just a day for show, said insiders. “The undergraduate students are not having regular classes at the RIMS as there is a dearth of actual faculty members. Also, patient care is affected and some departments at RIMS are running with a single faculty member. If the MCI clearances come through at Suryapet, it will be a repeat of the situation and lead to further churning out of incompetent doctors,” added Goud.
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