Video Editor: Ashutosh Bhardwaj
Video Producer: Aastha Gulati
Illustration: Kamran Akhter
Amid the coronavirus outbreak, the future of final year MBBS students of Maharashtra University of Health Sciences (MUHS) hangs in the balance.
We have made several pleas to the Medical Council of India and MUHS over the past month to conduct our supplementary exam that was supposed to be held in June but is now postponed indefinitely.
After passing the final year MBBS exam, every medical student has to go through a one-year internship, after which he is eligible to appear in various post-graduate entrance exams. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, our examination stands postponed and hence around 400 students will start our service as intern doctors late and we will also lose one academic year as we will not be able to apply for various post-graduate courses in time.
While we have already lost our eligibility for NEET, if the exams are delayed beyond June we might lose eligibility for other entrances too.
The All India Medical Students Association (AIMSA) and the the Federation of Resident Doctors Association (FORDA) have also tried to intervene in our support but in vain.
AIMSA’s letter to the MCI.
(Photo: Accessed by The Quint)
In this state of crisis, wherein the stress on healthcare has reached to peak and there is a dire need of health staff to manage the ever increasing cases, the responsibilities and job of interns cannot be ruled out.
We would like to appear for our exams so that we can fill the shortage of doctors and serve COVID-19 patients.
We are under stress regarding how to prepare for an exam for which we don't even have a fixed datesheet. Without any clear details regarding exam dates, students are feeling helpless and without direction. We have already lost more than three months waiting for this exam and even if we want to, we can't help patients.
Students also reached out to Amit Deshmukh, the Minister for Medical Education and Culture in the Government of Maharashtra who told us an announcement is expected soon.
We request that Chief Minister of Maharashtra Uddhav Thackeray and the Medical Council of India to either fast track the examination process with necessary precautions or start our internship and take our exams when the situation is better.
This will help us serve the country against the pandemic, qualify to appear for future entrance exams, and also save our future.
The University of Delhi has declared the results of the the supplementary exam and included the students in the current batch of interns for fighting the COVID-19 situation as frontline workers. We hope the same can be done for us.
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