General medicine popular choice for PG on day one of counselling

Pushpa.Narayan@timesgroup.com

Chennai:  02.04.2019

On the first day of counselling for admission to postgraduate medical courses under the state quota, MD general medicine was the most popular choice with more than 94 of the 290 candidates allotted seats opting for it.

The surgical stream, on the other hand, had just 24 takers and one student opted for anaesthesiology.

“The career options for general medicine are much better today,” said Dr Senthil Kumar, who was waiting for his turn at the counselling centre outside the Government Multi-Speciality Hospital at Omandurar. “As a PG in general medicine, he can practice in a clinic specialising in diabetes, lifestyle diseases or as family physician. Or, there is an option of specialising in fields like cardiology or nephrology. Pay is good and work is less compared to surgery,” he said.

A total of 112 candidates — nearly 38% — made it to the allotted list on Monday, according to the state selection committee. Based on the state merit list, the state called 492 students for counselling. “The merit list was drawn up based on NEET scores along with incentive scores given to in-service candidates. According to the government order students were given a maximum of 30% marks over the NEET score depending on the geographical area and number of years they have served,” said selection committee secretary Dr G Selvarajan. After the incentives, all top 10 candidates from the allotted list were from government hospitals.

At the end of the day, the committee said only 367 candidates had attended counselling. Of these, 283 were allotted seats in government medical colleges, seven in self-financing colleges affiliated to Tamil Nadu Dr MGR Medical University and 72 were waitlisted. Five other students decided not to take seats at the state counselling.

Some students who were happy with the seats allotted at the round 1 of all India counselling conducted by the Directorate General of Health Services did not turn up for counselling. “Some others came here to see if they had the option to get the college or course of their choice. It worked out for some. We are assuming that 125 of them did not turn up because they might have got the seat of their choice through the all India quota,” he said. The counselling will continue till Thursday and is likely to resume for the second phase after the second round of counselling for the all India quota is completed.

HC allows PG NEET counselling to go on

The Madurai bench of the Madras high court has directed the directorate of medical education not to publish the final list for NEET PG admissions in TN medical colleges, but has allowed the counselling, which began on Monday, to continue. The direction was in response to a petition by a Madurai-based government doctor who sought an interim stay on the counselling on the grounds that a government order passed on March 6 arbitrarily favours health officers working in municipalities and corporations. The PG NEET examinations were held on January 6, two months before the recent GO was passed. Dr P Jeyakumar, an assistant surgeon at the Government Rajaji Hospital in Madurai since 2013, said for all these years, 10% of NEET marks secured by medical officers were awarded as incentive and he was of the impression that he would be eligible for the incentive. But by passing the GO, the department had categorized the working place for availing incentives under difficult areas in hills, difficult areas in plains, remote and rural areas. TNN