Internship Deadline: Altogether 850 Gujarat Medicos ineligible for NEET PG 2023

Ahmedabad: Altogether 850 MBBS students belonging to five Gujarat based medical colleges might not be able to appear in the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test Postgraduate (NEET-PG) 2023 examination because of the Internship completion deadline given by the National Board of Examination in Medical Science (NBEMS).

While NBEMS has clarified that the NEET PG 2023 candidates must complete their mandatory one-year MBBS internship on or before March 31, around 850 students from Gujarat will fulfill this criteria only between April 10 and April 30.

Due to this one-month shortfall regarding the MBBS Internship deadline, these medicos from Gujarat will not be able to appear in NEET-PG 2023 and they will be left with no choice but to waste one entire year for pursuing higher studies.

The issue regarding Internship deadline is not a new one and every year several medicos face this problem. Medical Dialogues had last year reported that the Gujarat Intern Doctors' Association (GIDA) had written a letter to Dr. Anil Nayak, a member of the National Medical Commission, and pointed out that almost 8032 aspirants would be barred from appearing in the NEET PG 2022 exam as they would complete their internship after June.

Last year the Supreme Court gave its nod for extending the cut-off date last year for the Postgraduate medical admissions for the academic year 2022-2023 until November 25, 2022. Last year, the apex medical education regulatory body approached the Apex court with its application for extending the cut-off date on the ground of the messed up academic calendar due to the pandemic. This year the aspirants are seeking relief on eligibility criteria to ensure that 75% of the medicos are not deprived of a chance to appear for NEET PG.

National Board of examinations has announced that NEET PG 2023 will be held on 5th March 2023. The result will be declared By 31st March 2023.

Also Read: Doctors seeks postponement of NEET PG eligibility criteria till May-June

As per the latest media report by Ahmedabad Mirror, among the 850 medicos from Gujarat, who will not be eligible to appear in NEET PG 2023, 243 students are from BJ Medical College affiliated to Gujarat University. Apart from them, 130 students belong to GMERS Patan, 140 students from GMERS Himmatnagar, 140 from GMERS Vadnagar - all of them affiliated to Hemchandracharya North Gujarat University. There are another 140 students from Smt BK Shah Medical Institute and Sumandeep Vidyapith in Waghodia who will remain ineligible because of the criteria regarding MBBS Internship deadline.

The daily adds that the medicos from BJMC recently approached the additional dean Hansa Goswami raising this concern. Speaking about this, a student from BJMC told the daily, “Our internship letters were out on March 30, 2022. However, there was some re-arrangement in placing interns and that delayed the process of assigning new letters by five days. We got these letters on April 5 and we started the internship only by April 10. This delay by the college management will cost us an entire year.”

In this regard, a student from GMERS Patan sais that along with commencing the academic year late, the district administration had set up a 100-bed COVID hospital in Patan and the medicos had been given COVID duty.

“We were given Covid duty here and so our final year exam got delayed. In its domino effect, we started our one-year internship only on April 25, 2022. This means, we will complete our internship on April 25, 2023. This is 24 days after the deadline of March 31 eligibility criteria,” he added.

While commenting on the matter, NMC member from state and dean at HNGU, Anil Nayak assured that necessary action would be taken in this regard and representation would be made to the Centre if the students come forward and describe their exact problems by approaching the authorities.

Meanwhile, after NBEMS made the announcement regarding the date for NEET PG and deadline for Internship completion, doctors under Indian Medical Association Junior Doctors' Network (IMA JDN) have has submitted a letter to Dr Suresh Chandra Sharma, Chairman, National Medical Commission (NMC) requesting him to postponed the eligibility criteria from 31st March 2023 to 30th June 2023.

Also Read: MBBS interns demand NEET PG 2022 in June/July, ask for internship extension to October 2022