After NEET, around 800 super speciality medical seats may go vacant in India this year. This is why

As many as 800 medical super speciality seats in medical colleges across the country may just go vacant, owing to the National Medical Commission not reducing the cutoff percentile. This was confirmed to EdexLive by sources from the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC).

The Supreme Court of India has also capped the number of rounds of counselling at two, both of which are over. Additionally, the deadline for filling up the seats is January 15, which is only a day away. "The Supreme Court only allows us to conduct two rounds of counselling. Also, the NMC is yet to decrease the cutoff percentile here. Until they both take a decision here, the MCC is helpless," says a top official on condition of anonymity. "Unless the cutoff percentile is reduced, conducting any number of counselling sessions won't help, because the same candidates will be attending the interviews over and over again," he says.  

The NEET SS examination was held on September 15 and the results of the same were declared on September 25. The second round of counselling for different specialisations, including cardiology, surgical oncology and virology got over on December 31.

The situation has left a large number of resident doctors in the country in distress, who have now written various letters to the ministries and the NMC until now. They are now demanding that thee MCC conducts a stray vacancy round of counselling. "The seat matrix of vacant seats has not been displayed nor has the counselling scheme for Centralised Online Stray Vacancy drawn up. The NMC has declared January 15, 2021, as the last date of the admission process for Super Speciality seats for the academic session 2020-21," says the doctors in a statement. "This does not bode well for the medical profession when there is already a shortage of qualified doctors in the country, the effects of which were clearly visible during the COVID pandemic," it reads.