No faculty in 5 departments: NMC inspection points out Faculty Shortage at Dumka Medical College

The NMC inspector has noted down that there is not a single faculty in five departments of the college including Biochemistry, Pharmacology, Radiology, Skin, and Anaesthesia. Further, there is an acute shortage of faculty members in several other departments as well.

Dumka medical college had received recognition from NMC after a long wait. Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that NMC, the apex medical education regulatory body had stalled medical admission at three medical colleges in Jharkhand resulting in the State's loss of 300 MBBS seats in total.

Such a decision had been taken by the NMC as it had noted lack of necessary facilities at the medical colleges and NMC had also highlighted the deficit of faculty members and absence of libraries as reasons.

The college management could not fill up the vacant faculty posts since 2019 and due to this, NMC had put a ban on the medical college for admitting students.

Due to NMC's ban, the college was not allowed to admit students last year as well and even though the Chief Minister of the State Hemant Soren had written to NMC regarding the matter, the Commission had not given its nod.

After a long wait, the Phulo Jhano Medical College in Dumka got recognition from NMC for 100 MBBS seats after the Principal of the medical college submitted an affidavit to the Medical Assessment & Rating Board (MARB) of NMC.

In that undertaking, the college administration had assured NMC of filling up the vacant posts and fill up the shortages of faculties to bridge the gap in the infrastructure before the commencement of 2022-2023 academic session.

Also Read: Dumka Medical College gets NMC nod for 100 MBBS seats

As per the latest media report by the Times of India, even though it has already been three months since the medical college got recognition from the Commission, an NMC inspector has recently found deficiencies in the number of teaching faculties in the college. The inspector, Dr. Ramesh BH after conducting a two-day inspection found that there is not even a single faculty in five departments of the college.

Those five departments include Biochemistry, Pharmacology, Radiology, Skin, and Anaesthesia. Besides, several other departments also have severe crisis in the number of faculty members.

The NMC inspector arrived at the medical college on Wednesday and left for Karnataka on Friday.

Even though the NMC inspection has found out deficiencies, the principal in charge of the medical college, Dr. Arun Kumar informed TOI that this inspection would not affect the current academic year as the Commission had given its nod based on the assurances given by the College management.

"However, if the shortages in faculty members are not addressed very soon, the lacunae can hurt the college's prospects in the near future," he said.

"The PJMCH can continue to run the MBBS course for next academic sessions if at least posting of faculties are ensured in at least those departments where there is no one now," he added.