NEW DELHI: India's medical education regulator has instructed all medical institutions to extend services of the final year postgraduate students as resident doctors till the next batch joins. Also, institutions that have not yet conducted the final year examinations have been instructed to organise them as soon as the situation is "conducive".

This applies to all central, state and private medical institutions in the country.

The Board of governors, or BoG, that runs the Medical Council of India, in an advisory to all the medical institutions said that their services were required to handle the COVID-19 situation.

“In order to ensure that there is no shortage of residents in handling the COVID-19 pandemic the services of these postgraduate students as residents may continue to be utilized until fresh batch of postgraduate students have joined,” the advisory said.

The advisory pointed out that the final year examinations of diploma, MD and MS courses have been delayed because of the lockdown imposed to control the spread of coronavirus.

Moreover, the counselling for admission to postgraduate courses has also been delayed, impacting the start of 2020-21 academic session.

The BoG’s secretary general Rakesh Kumar Vats said in the advisory that those medical institutions where the final year exams have not been completed should do so “as soon as the situation is conducive”.

The institutions should also continue to give accommodation and stipend to the final year PG students during the extended period of the course, the advisory said.

In another advisory the BoG also directed the medical colleges and hospitals to consider utilizing the services of doctors holding MBBS degrees as “non-PG junior residents” for addressing the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The MBBS degree holders should be registered in state medical council” and that they will be “engaged in usual terms and conditions as junior residents” of their respective state, the advisory said.

Further MBBS doctors will no longer need a "no objection certificate" from the MCI to begin their internship. Their compulsory rotating internship has to be cleared only by the institution in which they studied and the one where they will do the internship.

The National Board of Education that conducts the DNB (Diplomate of National Board) programme had also notified on April 4 that the training ending between April 1and June 30 will be extended because of the lockdown imposed to control the spread of coronavirus.

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