No plans of converting PG Diploma degrees to MD, MS ones: Health Minsiter
New Delhi: In a major setback to all more than 50,000 PG Diploma holders in the country, the government has clarified that it has no plans of converting their diplomas into PG degrees (MD and MS courses) post thesis submission.
The confirmation to this effect was recently made by the Union Minister of State Health and Family Welfare, Shri Ashwini Kumar Choubey in the Lok Sabha session wherein he informed the members on whether the Government intends to permit 50,000 existing diploma holders to convert their diploma into an MS, MD degree after the submission of a thesis report.
To this question, the minister replied in negative and informed the parliament:
"There is no proposal to permit 50,000 existing diploma holders to convert their diploma into an MS/MD degree after the submission of a thesis report."
Medical Dialogues had extensively reported about the move made by the government to scrap the 2- year PG Diploma courses from medical colleges across the country from the academic session 2019-20 and in return grant the medical colleges with an equal number of MD/MS seats. However, the decision being for the future batches leaves behind around 4500 doctors who are currently pursuing their PG diploma courses at various medical colleges across the country. This also left behind more than 50,000 exisiting PG Diploma Holders who felt disadvantaged in terms of higher education as well as job opportunities
As per MCI norms, diploma degree holders cannot pursue super-specialisation through DM/Mch degrees. Further, while NBE offers secondary DNB courses post Diploma candidates, no such option is available for MD/MS courses. Further, in terms of job opportunities they are only allowed to work as senior residents with no sight of promotions despites years of service
With the COVID pandemic and the shortage of specialists, it was demanded that these doctors be allowed to convert their degrees to full fledged MD/MS ones after additional year of educaiton and thesis, which would immedaitely make available a pool of 50,000+ specialists in the country
Read Also: MCI PG Diploma Conversion: 276 MD,MS Seats Added In 19 Maharashtra Medical Colleges
