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Raj Bahadur
Dhanwantri, the god of Indian medicine, emerged from the ocean when it was churned by some contesting gods and demons. He is viewed as the incarnation of Vishnu. He reappeared as 'Divodasa', the Prince of Banaras. He taught surgery to Sushrat (AD 100). Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine who was born in 460 BC, was a great physician. It is because of such 'godlike` status of doctors among people that parents get motivated to see their wards in the lineage of these great men.
Fees, then & now
The profession could maintain its status till a few years post Partition when a common man could aspire to see his ward become a doctor by paying a meagre fee (as it seems now) of the medical school. This author (in 1970) was admitted by paying a fee of Rs 310 per annum and his teachers (in 1950) were admitted for approximately Rs 267, whereas the grand teachers in the early 1900s paid a fee of Rs110. However, these sums were not easily affordable at that time.
In general, the fees (fee and developmental charges in the guise of capitation) have escalated to 10,000 times, which is awfully exorbitant for a common man. This has changed the mindset of parents as well as students of choosing the profession not with an aim to serve humanity but to earn money.
There have been attempts to open medical schools in past 10 years in the private sector. Managements wish to run schools only to garner fees, rather than on the basis of running a good associated hospital of the college.
The menace of admitting students without recognised merit by mere settling of the fees hampers the popularisation of the profession. This trend began in the South.
NEET is expected to mitigate some faults in the admission process and the proposed EXIT Exam shall further take care of the shortcomings to bring out genuine produce in the market. Let us evaluate this year's NEET result in Punjab that has four categories of medical institutions. As many as 11,617 candidates competed for total 1,125 seats.
Govt medical colleges
Among the three government medical colleges, the candidate with the highest marks, ie 643 out of 720 (89.30% and 99.966 percentile), got admission in Government Medical College, Amritsar. The last candidate admitted in the Amritsar college had scored 538 marks out of 720 (74.72 % and 98.700 percentile).
The top candidate who opted for the Patiala college had got 637 out of 720 (88.47% and 99.941 percentile) and the last one had 555/720 (77.08% and 99.081 percentile). The top candidate who was admitted in the Faridkot college had scored 579/720 marks (80.41% and 99.490 percentile), while the last one had 534/720 (74.16 % and 98.598 percentile). Thus, the student admitted in the government colleges had marks in the range of 86.06 % and 75.32%.
Private colleges
In the private colleges, there are two types of seats in terms of fee: Government quota seats and management seats. The latter seats are also filled on merit basis, but their fee is three times that of the former. The fees of a government quota seat is Rs 2 lakh and that of management Rs 6 lakh per annum.
CMC, Ludhiana, which has seats only of the minority status, charges fees of management seats.
The candidate who got admitted in the government quota in private colleges had scored maximum marks of 636/720 (88.33% and 99.937 percentile), 540/720 (75% and 98.753 percentile), 534/720 (74.16% and 98.598 percentile) in DMC-Ludhiana, PIMS-Jalandhar and SGRD-Amritsar, respectively. The last candidate admitted in these colleges had scored 562/720 (78.05% and 99.216 percentile), 483/720 (67.08% and 96.958 percentile), 509/720 (70.69% and 97.868 percentile), respectively. Hence, on an average, the topper and lower candidates admitted in these colleges had scored 79.16% and 71.94% marks, respectively.
In CMC, where all the seats are of minority and management quota, the marks of the first and last admitted candidate were 570/720 (79.16% and 99.360 percentile) and 510/720 (70.83% and 97.899 percentile), respectively.
For management seats, the marks of the top candidates in DMC-Ludhiana, SGRD-Amritsar and PIMS-Jalandhar were 554/720 (76.94% and 99.063 percentile), 529/720 (73.47% and 98.465 percentile) and 510/720 (70.83% and 97.899 percentile), respectively. The scores of the last candidates admitted were 515/720 ( 71.52% and 98.060 percentile), 415/720 (57.63% and 93.604 percentile) and 483/720 (67.08% and 96.958 percentile), respectively.
Thus on an average, the students admitted in the management seats in the private medical colleges has highest percentage of 73.75% and the lowest is 65.41%.
Private university
In the only private medical university of the state, where all seats are of management quota, the fee is exorbitant: it is six times that of the government seat, with a 10% hike every year. Thus, it amounts to Rs 12 lakh to Rs 18 lakh per annum. The candidate with the highest marks admitted in the university was 480/720 (66.67% and 96.845 percentile), while that with the lowest score had 163/720 (22.63% and 60.068 percentile).
Thus, a pertinent point comes to fore: the maximum marks of the candidate admitted in the private university are lesser than the marks obtained by the last student admitted in any of the government as well as private institutions under the management quota. Overall, 67 students (51.54%) who got admissions in Private University have scored less than 41.67 % marks.
In conclusion, at this juncture, most of the meritorious students opted for government institutions or government seats in private institutions. Many students opt for management quota seats of private colleges despite their fee that is three times higher than that of the government seats.
High fee keeps meritorious away
But in the case of the only private medical university of the state, seemingly because of the exorbitant fees, the meritorious students have opted to stay away from the institution, leading to students with very low merit (22.63% marks) securing admission in it. Thus, it can be concluded that the candidates with not enough merit are now eligible to become medical professionals, which is not in consonance with one of the most sensitive profession which deals with the human life. It would be apt if such institutions, for the sake of achieving quality in the medical profession as well as in the interest of Punjab, brought parity in their fee structure at least with the private colleges of Punjab.
In the larger interest of the state, it would be appropriate if the state of Punjab can run more government-aided colleges, as the one proposed at Mohali, rather than giving liberally the Essentiality Certificate to private institutions/universities which are without viable resources of their own and have commercialised medical education.
The writer is VC, Baba Farid University of Health Sciences, Faridkot
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