With postponement of NEET-PG exam on the line today in SC, doctors express their hopes and grievances

With the Supreme Court's hearing on the NEET-PG postponement slated for later today, anticipation levels are high among medical aspirants writing the exam. But what exactly has the whole saga of the exam and its scheduling done to the minds of those preparing for it? EdexLive caught up with doctors across the country to know their grievances during these stressful times and how their preparations are moving along. 

The most interesting aspect of the issue is that even those doctors who have not been affected by the ongoing counselling process have found the going difficult due to the lack of certainty with regards to the entrance exam. "When you are preparing for the exam and there is news coming in every day about whether the exam will be postponed or not, then you feel the unrest. The uncertainty has definitely been troublesome for me. Yes, if the exam gets postponed then I will get more time for revision. But I have several friends who are still entangled with the counselling process and their concerns are indeed magnified and genuine," says Dr Farahaan who would be attempting the NEET-PG 2022.

As Farahaan says, the real issue is indeed with the scheduling of the counselling process so close to the exam date. This leaves little room for the aspirants to prepare for the test. "Even though my counselling process continued till March, I had started preparing for the NEET-PG from January itself. I was fortunate to find that I wouldn't get a seat. This allowed me to register for the entrance exam for 2022. But there are many students who did not register for the exam this year as they thought they would get a seat in this year's counselling itself. This is why the test needs to be postponed so that not only will interns be eligible for it but those aspirants can register for the exam who missed out on counselling this time," says Dr Richa, who will be attempting NEET for the second time.

The reality is that even postponing the exam wouldn't solve all the issues. One existing concern is that there wouldn't be a gap of one year between the PG students who have joined their colleges in the current counselling rounds and the fresh batch of students who would be admitted based on NEET-PG 2022. "Specialisations such as general surgery would really suffer because, in those programmes, the second year students teach a lot of concepts to the incoming first-year batch. But this time around, there wouldn't be a gap of one year between the intake of two batches. So, how will seniors learn enough to train their juniors?" asks Dr Vaishnavi Reddy, another aspirant writing the NEET-PG this time. These questions certainly need answering on the part of the National Medical Commission (NMC). 

What is not in doubt, however, is that the young doctors have been spending their valuable time studying for the coveted entrance exam, as advised by several associations and bodies of medical professionals across the country who have reciprocated the collective grievances to the Supreme Court. Now it's all eyes on the verdict later today.