All MBBS doctors in India may be able to pursue post-graduation degrees by 2025, if the government heeds to a key recommendation by a high-level group under the 15th Finance Commission.

The six-member panel under AIIMS-Delhi director Dr Randeep Guleria has suggested that UG and PG seats in medical colleges in the country should be equal in next five years. At present, PG seats are nearly one-third of around 80,000 MBBS seats.

The committee has also stressed the need to restructure the MBBS curriculum to make it competency based, introducing certain degree of specialisation in MBBS curriculum, and has asked medical education regulator to develop small courses on wellness clinics, basic surgical procedures, anaesthesia, obstetrics and gynaecology, eye, ENT etc.

The group, in its 120 page report that is now under government consideration, has also said that while MBBS be taught in medical colleges, PG doctors can be trained even in public and private hospitals without medical colleges. The report adds that the faculty in medical colleges should not be allowed to do private practice as it compromises teaching and research. 

Medical education experts, however, questioned some of the proposals saying they sound “illogical”.“The training of doctors without clinical resources is questionable and producing PG and UG students without proper infrastructure support can be disastrous in the long run,” said Dr Satendra Singh of University College of Medical Sciences, Delhi University.