75 percent Attendance must for Faculty, Private Practice Banned During College Hours: NMC

New Delhi: The National Medical Commission (NMC) has made it mandatory for the faculties in the medical colleges to have at least 75% attendance of the total working days. Further, the Commission has specified that the medical college faculties shall work full-time and they shall not engage in private practice during the college hours.

These conditions have been specified by the Postgraduate Medical Education Board (PGMEB) of the Commission in the recently released final Post-graduate Minimum Standard Requirements 2023 (PGMSR-2023). 

The PGMSR-2023 document, which was notified by the NMC on 15.01.2024, laid down the conditions for medical institutes across the country to be able to offer PG medical courses.

It included the mandatory requirements for a PG medical institute to start a PG medical course, the clinical material/investigation workload required for post-graduate, the ratio of eligible post-graduate faculty to the number of students, the number of minimum and maximum beds in a Unit, the faculty and senior resident requirements for the number of PG seats in different specialities, and the list of functional departments mandatory in a specific medical college etc.

One of these conditions specified in the PGMSR document mentioned, "Faculty shall be full-time and shall not engage in private practice during college hours. It shall be mandatory to have at least 75 per cent attendance of the total working days for the required number of faculties."

Apart from this, the conditions laid down by the NMC also mentioned that 80 per cent of the hospital beds should be occupied throughout the year, by patients requiring in-patient care.

One of the conditions also mentioned that a minimum of 15 per cent of the total beds in the Department imparting PG training should be Intensive Care Unit (ICU) beds/High Dependency Unit (HDU) beds exclusively of that Department. Out-Patient Departments should have an adequate space and a sufficient number of examination cubicles, as mentioned in PGMSR 2023.

Every medical college shall have a prescribed number of cameras at the prescribed locations of cameras with Close Circuit Cameras, as prescribed by the National Medical Commission.

The Apex Medical Commission has further prescribed that every college/institute needs to have its own website which shall contain the details of Departments with available facilities, faculty with contact details, PG courses along with number of seats, details of the admitted students and details of the clinical workload (OPD, IPD and Surgeries) for each Department separately.

Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that by issuing show-cause notices to over 350 medical colleges after finding a deficiency in attendance and failure to meet required faculty requirements (Minimum Standard Requirements 2020), the National Medical Commission (NMC) had issued a warning for the institutions directing them to strictly follow UG-MSR 2023 and MSMER 2023 otherwise their applications will not be considered and they will lose on approvals/recognition.

To view the PGMSR 2023, click on the link below: