Delay in med admissions: Students to struggle to catch up with syllabus

The rank list of MBBS and BDS candidates was recently released in Tamil Nadu but it will be challenging for the students to catch up with the syllabus due to the delay in admissions by several months. Officials from the selection committee of the Directorate of Medical Education said they were waiting for the settlement of cases pertaining to the admissions in the Supreme Court.

“There will be immense pressure on the students who enrol now as they will have to simultaneously work on practical classes as well. Last year, we had to move to online classes after COVID cases increased in Chennai. It was difficult to keep up with the projects as well,” said Sai Naresh, an MBBS student at a medical college in the city.

There was a delay in the medical admissions for the MBBS and BDS courses in Tamil Nadu this year due to the cases related to medical admissions pending in the court and further delay in the All India Quota counselling. The pandemic was not much of a contributing factor to the delay this year, officials from the DME said.

Meanwhile, government doctors’ association stressd that the syllabus should not be completed in haste as the students would be at a loss. “The DME should come up with a different structure for the course to cover the syllabus for the first-year students,” said Dr G R Ravindranath, secretary of Doctors’ Association for Social Equality.

“The delay in starting classes will be compensated through a time plan that will cover the theoretical classes and also the practicals for equipment-based classes. Students will be given details of the same as soon as the classes start,” said Dr Narayana Babu, Director of Medical Education.

He said the delay could not be prevented as the cases in court were not in the control of the State health department but the curriculum has been divided and the evaluation of the syllabus will also be done as per the required criteria.