Mumbai MD, MS Doctors to soon get postings for mandatory District Residency Programme
Mumbai: The Postgraduate doctors in Mumbai are soon going to be posted to the peripheral, maternity hospitals and dispensaries run by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, in compliance with the District Residency Programme.
Since the National Medical Commission (NMC) has made it mandatory for the PG medical students to undergo district residency for three months, the medical colleges in Mumbai recently discussed about the roadmap for implementing the DRP.
In this regard, a special meeting of the deans of medical colleges in the city was organized on Tuesday at Sir JJ Group of Hospitals. Already the secondatory care centres, which are equivalent to district hospitals, have been identified and the list of MD-MS students who will undergo the district residency has also been made.
In case of Mumbai, altogether 1,001 PG medical students belong to the 2021 batch who will have to undergo the district residency programme and they will be divided for the entire year for the three-month long posting.
The District Residency Programme had been proposed by NMC back in 2021 with an aim of "strengthening of services of the District Health System". Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that NMC had mentioned about the programme at the District Hospitals in the Draft Regulations on Postgraduate Medical Education.
It was proposed that all the PG medical students pursuing their MD/MS in broad specialities should undergo a compulsory residential rotation of three months in District Hospitals/ District Health System as a part of the course curriculum.
Such rotation shall take place in the 3rd or 4th or 5th semester of the Postgraduate programme, the new NMC Draft Regulations spelt out. This rotation shall be termed as 'District Residency Programme' (DRP) and the postgraduate medical student undergoing training shall be termed as a 'District Resident'.
Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that recently, writing to the Deans and Principals of all the medical colleges and the Directors of Medical Education (DME) of the country, the NMC PG Board mentioned how the District Residency Programme could not be properly implemented due to the COVID-19 pandemic and consequently made it mandatory for all the Postgraduate broad speciality students admitted in 2021 batch onwards.
Addressing the doubts regarding implementation of District Residency Programme for the Postgraduate medical students of broad specialty, NMC also issued a clarification and mentioned that DRP for three months is mandatory even for the students belonging to private medical colleges and deemed universities.
Accordingly, the medical colleges in Mumbai have also initiated the process to prepare the roadmap for implementing the programme. As per the latest media report by Hindustan Times, the students pursuing MD-MS will be posted in the BMC-run peripheral, maternity hospitals and dispensaries from May this year.
The State Health officials have clarified that the doctors pursuing PG medical courses in the government hospitals of the city will have to compulsorily serve the city government, government aided and semi aided hospitals.
Recently the deans of the medical colleges in the city discussed the roadmap for implementing the programme at Sir JJ Group of Hospitals campus. While commenting on the matter, the Dean of Sir JJ Group of Hospitals, Dr Pallavi Saple, who is also the nodal officer of the programme for the Mumbai district told HT, “We have identified secondary care centres in the city, which are equivalent to district hospitals. We have a list of MD-MS students who have to undergo the three-month posting. The students will be posted as per their speciality and demand.”
“We have BMC’s peripheral hospitals, maternity hospitals, newly-started HBT clinics, police hospital where the forensic resident can be posted, BMC’s TB hospital and Leprosy hospital. We have asked the BMC to give us a list of facilities where there are specialists available to supervise the students,” she added.
Dr Saple further mentioned that they are also trying to get a software or an app that can help the students choose between the available facilities for the posting. She mentioned, “We have two months’ time. If we get the software, the student will have a choice for the posting too.”
Since the resident doctors had raised hesitancy regarding the implementation of the district residency programme, these postings are likely to solve that issue.
While commenting on the matter, the president of Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors (BMC hospitals), Dr Pravin Dhage added, “It is a good decision as there will be maximum utilisation of manpower. We have been insisting that the placement should be as per the speciality and infrastructure. If you are posting a gynaecology resident doctor in a rural hospital with no infrastructure, s/he will be wasted manpower.”
He further mentioned that posting of resident doctors in the city hospitals will also be beneficial to deal with the shortage of manpower.
“At any given time of the year, there will be 100-150 resident doctors who will be divided among our hospitals. We will get around two-three doctors in each faculty. We are not getting doctors for plain posts as everyone wants to go for post graduate. This programme will fill the gaps. We are making a list of facilities that see more work load. Accordingly, resident doctors can be posted there,” mentioned Dr Vidya Thakur, chief medical superintendent of BMC’s peripheral hospitals.
Dr Thakur was also present at the meeting in JJ Hospital and she mentioned that they will submit the list of facilities for the postings this week.
