53 super-specialty medical seats remain vacant in TN

TNN | Updated: Oct 25, 2017, 00:01 IST

Chennai: At least a quarter of the super-specialty medical seats in Tamil Nadu, including cardiothoracic surgery, paediatric surgery and neurosurgery, remain vacant even after the Supreme Court allowed a 10-day extension for the Directorate General of Health Services, New Delhi, to complete counselling. Thirty super-specialty courses at Madras Medical College (MMC) too found no takers. The seats were thrown open to postgraduate doctors across the country.

Admission process for all super-specialty courses in the country was conducted by the DGHS this year. There are 1,011 super-specialty seats in the country. As 553 seats, including 99 in Tamil Nadu, remained vacant until October 11, the Supreme Court allowed DGHS conduct a special mop-up counselling and granted 10 days' time, too. Postgraduate students from across the country were asked to apply for the vacancies and the allotted students were asked to join medical colleges by Saturday.

On Wednesday, the directorate of medical education in Tamil Nadu said 53 seats, including 30 in the Madras Medical College, remained vacant even after the mop-up. "Most of the seats were surgical speciality. About 14 seats from cardiothoracic surgery and eight in paediatric surgery were vacant just in Madras Medical College. There were also vacant seats in neurosurgery, neurology, hepatology and neonatology," said selection committee secretary Dr G Selvarajan.

In June, doctors demanded reservation for super-specialty seats in state-run medical colleges and launched the 'Our State, Our Seat' campaign. "If they had reserved seats for domiciliary candidates, we could have minimised wastage," said Dr P Balakrishnan, Chennai unit president of Tamil Nadu Government Doctors Association. Until last year, after surrendering 50% of the seats, the state was allowed to reserve 50% of the seats for students from its states.