Tamil Nadu Proposes 4 Regional DMEs amid expansion of Govt Medical Colleges

Chennai: The Tamil Nadu health department is planning to restructure the Directorate of Medical Education (DME) by creating four regional posts of Directors of Medical Education, as the state’s network of government medical colleges continues to expand. 

The DME was established in July 1966, after the medical education wing was bifurcated from the Directorate of Medical Services (DMS). The move was intended to create a specialised administrative mechanism for managing teaching hospitals and higher medical education, reports the Daily.

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According to Economic Times, a senior official said, “It was done when they realised that supervising both rural healthcare delivery and the complex logistics of tertiary medical institutions was too overwhelming for one department”. “With a policy to start one medical college in every district, we have 36 medical colleges now. It is difficult for one person to manage them centrally from Chennai,” he said. The orders for these structural changes will be ready in a couple of days, he said.

Under the proposed system, four regional heads will function under the Director of Medical Education and are expected to exercise greater administrative control over medical institutions within their respective regions.

Their responsibilities will extend beyond undergraduate medical education. They will independently oversee undergraduate, postgraduate and super-speciality medical programmes, as well as dental and allied health education.

The regional offices will also be responsible for monitoring patient care and assessing the availability of infrastructure and human resources in teaching hospitals.

However, the proposed changes have drawn objections from doctors’ associations. The Tamil Nadu Government Doctors Association has said the government should not issue such orders without consulting representatives of doctors’ groups.

The Service Doctors and Postgraduates Association has also questioned the need for what it described as an unnecessarily complicated process.

Speaking to Economic Times, A Ramalingam, association general secretary, said, “They must choose a DME from a seniority panel that was created before March 15, 2026. There were four names on the list. The department has added more deans to the seniority list and called them for an interview.”

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