NMC relaxes some norms of teachers' eligibility for medical colleges

NEW DELHI: Non-teaching consultants, specialists and medical officers possessing postgraduate medical degree and who have worked for at least four years in a minimum 220-bedded teaching or nonteaching government hospital can become assistant and associate professors, the NMC has proposed. In the recent draft "Teachers Eligibility Qualifications (TEQ) in Medical Institutions Regulations", the National Medical Commission (NMC) has relaxed some of the norms of teachers' eligibility for medical colleges.

The previous norms issued in 2022 allowed non-teaching doctors to become assistant professors after working for two years in a 330-bedded non-teaching hospital when the hospital got converted into a medical college. The NMC has placed the draft regulations in public domain and has sought comments and feedback from stakeholders on it.

"A non-teaching consultant/specialist/medical officer, possessing postgraduate medical degree , working for at least four years in a minimum 220 bedded teaching/non-teaching government hospital shall be eligible to become an Assistant Professor of that broad specialty. They should have completed the Basic Course in Biomedical Research (BCBR) prior to becoming eligible for such a post," the draft regulations said.

Eligibility for assistant professor

Besides relaxing the norms, the draft regulations stated that diploma holders appointed as senior residents before June 8, 2017 and are continuously working as senior resident in the same institute shall be eligible for the post of Assistant Professor. Besides, a senior consultant, recognised as PG teacher under NBEMS criteria and is working /has worked as PG teacher in a government medical institution running NBEMS recognised PG training programme will be eligible to become professor in a NMC recognised medical college of his/her specialty on completion of three years of experience as PG teacher.

Only original papers, Metanalysis, Systematic Reviews, and Case series that are published in journals indexed in Medline, PubMed, Central Science Citation Index, Science Citation Index, Expanded Embase, Scopus, Directory of Open Access Journals (DoAJ) will be considered. The draft regulation further stated that faculty in a medical college or institution having a total of five years of teaching experience in the respective specialty as assistant professor and above shall be recognised as post graduate guide in that specialty.

A faculty in a medical college or institution having a total of three years of teaching experience in the respective speciality as assistant professor and above, shall be recognized as post graduate guide in that super specialty subject. The draft regulations has kept the two-year-old provision of allowing non-medical graduates with MSc and PhD degrees to teach medical students anatomy, biochemistry, and physiology during a transitional period.