Diploma Doctors can now become Assistant Professors in Medical Colleges: New NMC rules offer relief
PG Diploma Holders to be Appointed as Medical College Faculty
New Delhi: Finalising the Teachers Eligibility Qualifications in medical colleges, the National Medical Commission (NMC) has now allowed medical diploma holders to join medical colleges as faculty.
This comes as a relief for these doctors, whose careers became uncertain after the erstwhile Medical Council of India (MCI), now replaced by NMC, restricted the PG medical diploma holders from taking faculty positions at medical colleges.
Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that releasing the final Medical Institutions (Qualifications of Faculty) Regulations, 2025, in the official Gazette dated June 30, 2025, NMC laid down the eligibility qualifications for medical teachers at medical institutes.
NMC has mentioned that to be appointed for the post of Assistant Professors in medical broad specialities and surgical broad specialities in medical colleges, diploma holders appointed as Senior Residents in a recognised medical institute before 08.06.2017, having a total experience of four years as Senior Resident, shall be eligible.
Similarly, diploma holders shall also be eligible for those posts if they have been working as Specialists or Medical Officers in the respective departments of a government medical institution or a Government medical institution running a National Board of Examination and Medical Science recognised teaching programme, having a cumulative experience of six years.
Also Read: Diploma doctors can now be faculty in medical colleges: NMC Draft TEQ 2024
Specifying the experience, research and other requirements for Assistant Professors in medical broad specialties and surgical broad specialties [Doctor of Medicine (M.D) and Master of Surgery (M.S)], NMC mentioned that "diploma holders appointed as Senior Residents in a recognised medical institution before 08.06.2017 having total experience of four years as Senior Resident" shall be eligible for the post.
MCI Restriction on Diploma Doctors to Teach in Medical Colleges:
The difference between post-graduate degree and diploma holders in medical colleges across India is that while the PG Diploma holders pursued a two-year course, the PG degree (MD/MS) holders studied for three years. In terms of curriculum, training, and MCI requirements of infrastructure and teaching facilities, both the PG Diploma and PG Medical Degrees are almost equal, with the difference lying in one additional year in MD/MS dedicated to THESIS.
However, the diploma holders faced a huge obstacle in terms of career prospects as the erstwhile MCI barred diploma candidates from applying for academic positions at medical colleges. Previously, they were allowed to work as senior residents at medical colleges, but after a notification issued in June 2017, this option was taken away. However, MCI had clarified back then that the existing Diploma senior residents could continue at their existing posts as per MCI.
Earlier, the 109 Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health, after taking note of the issue of severe shortage of medical college faculties, had recommended abolishing diploma courses because the only difference between diploma and degree courses was the duration of the course and submission of the thesis. The panel had suggested that instead of diploma courses, the number of degree seats were increased. Regarding the existing Diploma holders, the panel's suggestions mentioned that medical professionals who already qualified the Diploma courses and worked in the teaching hospitals for two years should be given a degree after the submission of the Thesis report.
Following this, the erstwhile MCI decided to stop all MCI-recognised postgraduate diploma courses in medical colleges and give an equal number of MD/MS seats in return to the medical colleges. While this decision, to be applied prospectively, was aimed at providing relaxations to the future generation of specialists, it left behind thousands of doctors who were holding MCI-recognised Diploma Degrees but did not have any avenue of career progression.
In the Draft Teachers Eligibility Qualifications (TEQ) 2024 Regulations, NMC had offered relaxation for PG Diploma Holders. It had mentioned that Diploma Holders appointed as Senior Residents before 08.06.2017 and continuously working as Senior Residents in the same institute shall be eligible for the post of Assistant Professor. Similarly, the Draft also allowed Specialist/Medical Officers in a Government Medical College for six years to qualify for the post of Assistant Professor.
Now, finalising these proposed changes, NMC has released the final Medical Institutions (Qualifications of Faculty) Regulations, 2025 in the official Gazette on 30.06.2025.
Welcoming this move, Dr. Z. A. Golewale from the PG Diploma Doctors Association opined that this move would help to deal with the faculty crisis in the medical colleges.
Speaking to Medical Dialogues, Dr. Golewale said, "We welcome the decision of the Union Ministry of Health and NMC. This is a very positive decision and this will help a lot in medical education to solve the problem of faculty deficiency."
He also referred to the issue of "ghost faculty" in medical colleges and added, "Colleges were also facing problems that they were unable to find faculties. We have been requesting for a long time to relax the regulations and allow genuine candidates, who are involved in teaching and have experience for years."
However, Dr. Golewale pointed out that the new regulations state that diploma degree holders are eligible for the post of Assistant Professor if they have four years of experience as a Senior Resident and were appointed before 08.06.2017.
"Similarly, those with 10 and 15 years of experience should be directly appointed as Associate Professor and Professor, respectively, subject to the condition of submitting the required research publications. If implemented, this provision would offer an even greater benefit," he said.
Also Read: NMC releases Medical Faculty regulations- 6 KEY TAKEAWAYS
