Institutes offering CPS courses lack adequate standards: Maharashtra Medical Education Department to Centre

Mumbai: Referring to significant gaps in the standards of institutes offering College of Physicians and Surgeons (CPS) affiliated courses, the medical education department of Maharashtra has recently written to the Union Health Ministry and asked for Centre's opinion on whether counselling can be conducted for around 1,100 CPS seats.

Writing to the Centre, the department has referred to the inspection of the Maharashtra Medical Council conducted last year. During the inspection, MMC had found "severe deficiencies" in several institutes.

Established back in 1912, CPS Mumbai is an autonomous body that imparts Postgraduate medical education and offers fellowship, diploma and certificate courses for the medical professionals. For the Diploma courses, the tenure is of two years and in case of Fellowship, the tenure is three years. After obtaining the qualification granted by CPS Mumbai, the practitioners become allowed to register themselves as specialists in the concerned specialty.

Currently, more than 3,000 aspiring medical professionals are facing uncertainty regarding their admission to CPS courses. Even though the Central Government has already conducted National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test Postgraduate (NEET-PG) Examination for 2023-2024 and the admission for the previous session ended around mid-January, CPS admissions for the academic year 2022-2023 has not even commenced.

For three years, CPS admissions in Maharashtra had been done by the Directorate of Medical Education and Research (DMER). This year, the Union Ministry had issued a letter to the States on January 12, 2023 and asked them to commence the admission process for CPS courses.

Also Read: CPS Mumbai releases schedule for Diploma, FCPS Theory Exams April 2023, details

As per the latest media report by the Times of India, amidst all this, the secretary of medical education Ashwini Joshi recently wrote to the Union Health Ministry and informed about the inspections conducted by MMC at some hospitals running the CPS courses back in January.

During the inspection, the Council had visited 120 hospitals and among them 2 institutes had been found to be non-operational. While 74 institutes had refused inspection, in 44 institutes, where the Council had carried out the inspections, the teams had took note of severe deficiencies in terms of the infrastructure and faculty. The report in this regard stated that the infrastructure and faculty of those institutes violated the NMC Minimum Standard Requirement (MSR).

Writing to the Union health Ministry, State medical education secretary Dr Joshi alleged that admitting students in such institutes would be detrimental to their careers and for the health system. "Hence you are requested to guide further," stated the letter.

Sources have informed TOI that the state has also sent a reminder to the Central Government. While commenting on the matter, an officer said, "Till Centre's guidance arrives, how could we begin the counselling process?"

Meanwhile, CPS President Dr Girish Maindarkar mentioned that he had not been informed about the inspection and the institute came to know about the letter from the State through social media. 

"If there is anything wrong in affiliated institutes, as president of CPS, I should have been kept in the know. Also, MMC is a registration body, I am not sure if it can act as a regulatory body and inspect our institutions," he told the daily.

Further adding that the council also needs to inform about the shortcomings, Dr Maindarkar mentioned, "The MSR for DNB (Diplomate of National Board) and CPS institutions are different from MSR for medical colleges affiliated to universities. Teachers inspecting CPS institutes are from medical colleges and we will understand the inspection was fair if we see the report."

Since January, CPS has written to the State twice asking it to commence the admission process. While the confusion continues in Maharashtra, CPS admissions in other states such as Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat have already commenced.

Also Read: CPS Mumbai Asks Students To Fill Out Online Exam Form For April 2023 Exams