Recently, the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) reduced the counselling cut-off percentiles.
This has irked a few members of the medical community as they believe that reducing cut-off percentiles will take the field of medicine back and negatively impact medical services.
Initially, the cut-off was 50 for the general category, which has now been reduced to 15. According to the MCC's notice dated January 4, the details of the lowered percentile and the eligibility are:
- General Category/Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) - 15 percentile and above will be eligible to participate in counselling
- Scheduled Castes (SC)/Scheduled Tribes (ST)/Other Backward Classes (OBC)/Persons with Disabilities (PwD) category - 10 percentile and above will be eligible to participate in counselling
This has been implemented to prevent seat wastage, enabling the filling of vacant seats, mostly in the non-clinical subjects.
Shashank Kambali, a physiologist and president of TMMA (The MSc Medicine Association), stated, "For many years, many seats have gone vacant in non-clinical subjects. For that very reason, medical colleges have been training non-MBBS applicants in these fields and giving them MSc (Master of Science) medical degrees for several decades."
Although the matter of vacant seats is recurring, the underlying point is to understand why non-clinical subjects are a 'second option' for medical students compared to clinical subjects.
Clinical subjects are specialities directly involved in patient care, such as medicine, surgery, paediatrics, obstetrics & and gynaecology, ophthalmology, and orthopaedics. Non-clinical subjects include basic science subjects like anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, pathology, microbiology, pharmacology, and forensic medicine.
In Shashank Kambali's view, "Any MBBS graduate enters the medical field to seek clinical practice, and the lack of patient engagement makes them disinterested in non-clinical work."
He further went on to explain the category of students who choose non-clinical subjects; they are:
1. In order to avoid intense competition, those who do not fall under the reservation category choose non-clinical
2. To avoid hefty fees, students from lower backgrounds choose this option
3. Students who performed poorly in NEET-PG, hence, couldn't enroll in clinical subjects
4. Students who prioritise work-life balance
Additionally, medical students are often compelled to pursue a PG in non-clinical subjects due to the non-availability of seats in clinical subjects.
PG: A necessity or compulsion?
Dr Dheeraj Maheshwari, Assistant Professor, Forensic Medicine, Pacific Medical College & Hospital, Udaipur, Rajasthan, opines that pursuing a PG seems necessary for medical students solely for promotions. "Medical students are more concerned about getting a PG for promotion than studying. This is because if the PG course is completed within three years, the in-service physician may be promoted," he opines.
Further, he emphasised that medical students would rather take a drop year before opting for non-clinical subjects. "After two or more years of trying for clinical, most students take up non-clinical seats as they decide to move on with their lives, especially after observing the progress of their batch mates," he says.
"Studying the same for years and earning zilch to get a clinical seat takes a toll on mental health as well. Therefore, students gravitate towards non-clinical seats," he opined. Drawing inference to his career, Maheshwari said he made multiple attempts aiming for clinical seats. "Coming from the general category, the necessity to study and earn drove me to pursue forensic medicine," he told EdexLive.
Adding more about those who join non-clinical seats, Maheshwari said, "Students who chose to study medicine because of peer or family pressure are switching to non-clinical fields in search of a stress-free work environment and work-life balance."
Kambali, on the other side, opines that compelling medical students to choose non-clinical subjects would, eventually, demotivate them towards a career in medicine.
"Every student aspires to become a clinician, but choosing non-clinical courses might eventually adversely impact their psyche. They will be impacted by the loss of hope for clinical practice and will be cruelly compared to their peers who work in the clinical fields," he said.
Society's stigma
According to experts, the stigma surrounding non-clinical subjects is one of the main reasons medical students opt for clinical subjects.
"When the Indian Medical Association (IMA) proposed zero percentile to the ministry last year, it stated that patient health and care were unaffected by the candidate's performance or was of low quality because non-clinical subjects are less significant. The medical community and the NMC have historically viewed these fields as less significant," Kambali opined.
To recall, in December 2024, the India Medical Association - Junior Doctors Network (IMA-JDN) wrote to Union Health Minister JP Nadda urging for reducing the NEET-PG counselling cut-off percentile to fill vacant seats.
In Maheshwari's perspective, "Society considers a surgeon or a physician as a doctor." Even though medics from non-clinical subjects are doctors, they are not recognised for their specialisation.
Employment opportunities
Both came to a convergence point regarding the limited employment opportunities in non-clinical subjects.
"There is little opportunity for doctors to work on non-clinical topics outside of teaching and research. Only a few of them are carrying out remarkable research and making significant progress," Kambali remarked.
"Our nation hasn't made many contributions in the non-clinical side for decades. Just a few well-known physicians, including Dr Autar Singh Paintal, have gained recognition for their community service," he further added.
Maheshwari highlights the lack of significant jobs as a primary problem. "Physicians in pharmacology have no employment options; their only choice is to become assistant professors," he said.
Making a striking point, Kambali said, "With a significant rise in medical colleges after 2014, the colleges view recruiting MSc postgraduates as against the age-old tradition. In fact, they could compensate for the deficiency in MD postgraduates. However, the obligation to hire only MD postgraduates has resulted in a new culture of ghost faculty, who work for biometric purposes only."
"Students are learning nothing, and when they pass with zero cut-offs and become teachers, that would be a disaster for the country," Kambali worries.
He suggests MCC not force graduates to pursue non-clinical subjects to overcome such an appalling situation. "The very idea of forcing them to non-clinical subjects is born because of the scarcity of faculty. Therefore, improving the quality of these subjects by recruiting quality teachers who are genuinely interested in the subject and have good experience is ideal," he suggests.
Lastly, Maheswari thinks, "The government should implement pay hikes for the students to motivate them to pursue non-clinical seats"
