10,000 DNB seats will be offered by 2020: Dr Rashmikant Dave, Executive Director, NBE

New Delhi: PG medical seats in the coming year will see a tremendous rise with the National Board of Examinations (NBE) targeting to offer 10,000 DNB seats by 2020. There are currently 8,264 DNB seats across various specialities and super specialities being offered at the moment in the country.

Speaking at the Teachers Day ceremony organised by ANBAI last week, Dr Rashmikant Dave, Executive Director, NBE apprised about the various steps taken by the National Board of Examinations to improve the quality of DNB education as well as the quantity of DNB seats in the country.

" Last year there were around 7500 total DNB seats in the country, and with conscious efforts of NBE, associations like ANBAI as well as hospitals themselves, total DNB seats have now gone up to 8264. We plan to increase this number to 10,000 seats by the year 2020," he said.

Speaking about the super-specialist seats count via the DNB SS courses, he informed that there has been a more than 40 percent increase in DNB SS seats that were available for current counselling compared to the last.

"Last year there were around 1,173 DNB SS seats available across various super specialities. The number now is 1,744 DNB seats," he informed.

" We are working very closely with all the stakeholders, candidates-what problems they are facing, listening to them and taking corrective measures.  To provide more opportunity to hospitals, we have introduced two sessions of the applications for accreditation of DNB institutes. Last year, we had received 500 applications for fresh accreditation and this year we have received over 1,000 applications," Dr Dave informed

He informed that the thurst of NBE would be to offer DNB courses at various district hospitals and in tier II and tier III cities. " We are also working on faculty development programmes and training to meet the requirements of increased seats. At the moment we have identified 10 such centres that are going to train and develop new faculty for the purpose of DNB teaching and we will increase them as per need in future as well. "

" All new faculties would be required to undergo training and would be trained by the existing DNB faculty having years of experience in DNB teaching," he added

With a severe dearth of specialists and super-specialists across the country, several measures have been taken by the government to increase PG medical seats in the recent years. Recently Dr VK Paul, who is also the chairman of MCI Board of Governors highlighted that the government has made provisions to double the number of MBBS seats in medical education by 2024, but attaining the required number of specialist doctors is five times more difficult agenda. He further added that 80,000 PG medical seats will be added by 2024, with participation of private sector healthcare providers.

Read Also: MBBS seats to increase to 85,525, PG Medical seats to 46,558 by 2020-21