Maharashtra: PG medical students with higher education prospects stuck due to delay in exam

For 25-year-old Sandhya Soni (name changed), her joy knew no bounds when she cleared the all-important entrance exam to bag a seat in the super speciality Master’s course in paediatric surgery at the All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS), Delhi

For 25-year-old Sandhya Soni (name changed), her joy knew no bounds when she cleared the all-important entrance exam to bag a seat in the super speciality Master’s course in paediatric surgery at the All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS), Delhi. However, now her fear is that she might lose the seat as the last date to submit their final-year postgraduate (PG) medical exam certificate is July 31, but the exams in Maharashtra is scheduled to take place in August.

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“Our final-year PG medical exam is scheduled to begin on August 16, but the final date to submit all certificates to AIIMS is July 31, which is impossible for us. We have approached the authorities at AIIMS, but have not heard from them yet,” said Soni, who along with another student from Grant Medical College are the only two students from Maharashtra to have cleared the entrance exam this year. “This is a super speciality course and the fact that we have been allotted a seat itself is a big deal. Missing out on the admission for no fault of ours will be unfair,” she added.

Originally scheduled to take place in May, PG final-year exams were postponed by a month based on a circular by the National Medical Commission (NMC) in order to ensure all students are working across hospitals, as the country was in the midst of the peak of the second wave of Covid-19.

On Tuesday, representatives of the Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors (MARD) approached the Maharashtra University of Health Sciences (MUHS) as well as AIIMS Delhi, requesting then to consider this matter.

“PG final-year exams were postponed due to rising Covid cases, and therefore all hospitals needed their residents to work throughout the past two months. These students managed to ace their Master of Chirurgiae (MCh) entrance exam despite working seven days a week, which is commendable. Authorities at AIIMS must consider giving a one-time only extension to these candidates,” said Dr Pranav Jadhav, vice-president, central MARD.

The letter has also been addressed to the Union health minister and Federation of Resident Doctors Association (FORDA). They have also requested MUHS to intervene in this matter and approach AIIMS directly. “We have received the request from students and will be writing to admission authorities at AIIMS,” said an official from MUHS.