Post-graduate institute at RML becomes a reality

Ram Manohar Lohia (RML) hospital has become the first hospital in Delhi to boast of a Post-Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research.

Union health minister Dr Anbumani Ramadoss on Wednesday inaugurated the Rs 60-crore building spread across 24,000 square metres.

"It is one of those rare occasion where I have laid the foundation of an institute and inaugurated it as well," he said.

Apart from the medical college, RML is all set to get autonomous status on the lines of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) and PGI Chandigarh.

This is the beginning of some of the big changes the Centre has planned for RML. The new building has separate academic and administrative blocks, a state-of-the-art auditorium with seating capacity of 400 people, a seminar hall-cum-library, a guesthouse with 21 rooms and a cafeteria.

There are also plans to amend Medical Council of India regulations where one professor is allowed to have one researcher under him or her. "We have proposed the idea of allowing a professor to have two researchers," he said.

Also, there is a proposal to recognise post-graduate degrees of all English-speaking countries and even developing countries providing quality medical education.

"They will mostly be Indian doctors who went abroad," he said. "We would like to convert all our hospitals into teaching institutes to produce quality specialists," said health secretary Naresh Dayal.