Faridkot medical college gets 45 more PG seats, Patiala GMC five

FARIDKOT:The Medical Council of India (MCI) has approved 45 more seats for post-graduation courses to the Guru Gobind Singh Medical College (GGSMC), Faridkot.

With this the number of PG seats at the college has gone up from 53 to 98. The MCI allotted nearly 3,000 seats across India, 50 of which to Punjab. Government Medical College, Patiala, got five seats, but Government Medical College, Amritsar, failed to get any new seat.

The MCI had recommended the increase in the PG seats in the clinical subjects of government medical colleges for the academic year 2017-2018 to the Union health ministry.

The increase in the seats is on the lines of the MCI revising its teacher-student ratio. As per the notification issued by the MCI, the teacher-student ratio shall be 1:3 for professor and 1:2 for associate professor for all government medical colleges.

Baba Farid University of Health Sciences (BFUHS) vicechancellor Dr Raj Bahadur said with the increase in seats, the patient care at the hospital will improve as junior doctors (PG students) are backbone of a hospital. He said as the state was facing shortage of specialists, the move will prove to be a boon in the near future. The department of anaesthesia that had only two seats got a maximum increase of 10 seats. The number of seats available for various courses after the increase are MS (orthopaedics) 5, MD (respiratory medicine) 3, MD (psychiatry) 4, MD (DVL) 7, MD (paediatrics) 5, MS (general surgery) 11, MD (general medicine) 10, MS (ENT) 6 and MS (opthamology) 7.

In Government Medical College, Patiala, a total of five PG seats have been added. Three seats for obstetrics and gynaecology and one seat each in ophthalmology and psychiatry departments.