Academic year of DNB students to start only after NEET 2022

Even though two civicrun peripheral hospitals out of the total six have been shortlisted for the Diplomate of National Board DNB postgraduate courses provided by the National Board of Examinations NBE in medicine students eyeing the allotted seats will have to wait until the 2022 NEET examination results as civic health officials say more courses would be approved by thenmidday in its article titled lsquoCity peripheral hospitals get nod for only five DNB diploma seatsrsquo dated December 14 was the first to highlight the NBE accreditation for three seats at Bhabha hospital Bandra and two seats at V N Desai hospital Santacruz East which will be valid tillDecember 2025ldquoWe are excited and looking forward to the academic year to start which will happen post the NEET 2022 examination and subsequent declaration of results This also means that the process of inspection and accreditation by NBE will continue until then and we are expecting that most of the courses for which the six peripheral hospitals have made submissions will get approvals before the start of the academic sessionrdquo said Dr Vidya Thakur chief medical superintendent peripheral hospitalsDr Thakur further said ldquoWith the growing population and health infrastructure available it is the need of the hour to provide improvised healthcare facilities to people living in and around the vicinity of the peripheral hospitals Quality treatment comes with a good team of medical experts and qualified postgraduate studentsrdquoldquoWith peripheral hospitals already hiring senior faculties for running DNB and PG Diploma courses accredited by the NBE in Gynaecology Orthopaedics ENT Medicine Paediatrics and Anaesthesiology we have started conducting major surgeries Moreover the additional arms of most of these hospitals are under construction and work is in progressrdquo explained Dr ThakurldquoIt is a winwin situation for the public at large as quality lifesaving treatment and surgeries can be done at these peripheral setups The main aim is to reduce the burden of patient inflow to KEM Nair LTMG and Cooper hospitalsrdquo she saidWhen asked about the seats for specialised subjects that the peripheral hospitals applied for Dr Thakur said ldquoRajawadi had applied for 11 courses Bhabha for eight subjects and VN Desai for eight subjects In some cases we have got recommendations from NBE for certain specific courses and we are in the process of adhering to them Once done the accreditation is expectedrdquoSpeaking to midday Suresh Kakani additional commissioner of BMC said ldquoWe are positive about getting accreditation for all the peripheral hospitals before the start of the academic year Gradually we will expand our DNB programmes to the other peripheral hospitals These six peripheral hospitals will soon become a teaching centrerdquoOne door opens another closesThe six peripheral hospitals Rajawadi Bhabha VN Desai Shatabdi and Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya where the DNB courses will start next year will no longer provide PG Diploma courses to students from College of Physician and Surgeon Parel Most of the 16 peripheral hospitals in the city suburbs used to provide courses in different streams of medicine and surgery to medical graduates post their MBBS graduation courseConfirming the same Dr Thakur said ldquoAs per NBE guidelines courses from two different boards are not allowed Moreover the students from College of Physician and Surgeon Parel can apply to any of the remaining 10 civicrun peripheral hospitalsrdquoWhen asked to explain the difference between regular postgraduate courses like MD or MS offered by the MUHS Nashik and DNB courses offered by NBE Dr Virendra Agarwal professor of Orthopaedic Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya Hospital in Govandi said ldquoThe biggest difference is that MD and MS courses have management quota whereas NBE courses are purely based on merit and they donrsquot have any quota system The fees for MD and MS courses under the quota system run into crores but the same for DNB courses is approximately Rs 80000 to Rs 1 lakh per yearrdquo