NMC notifies new norms for MBBS admissions, setting up of medical colleges; deletes 5-acre land requirement
The National Medical Commission has notified the ‘Minimum Requirements for Annual MBBS Admissions Regulations (2020)’ deleting the quantum of land required for setting up a medical college and its affiliated teaching hospitals and outlines sharing of all available teaching spaces by all departments
The notification issued on Saturday replaces the “Minimum Standard Requirements for Medical Colleges, 1999″ of the erstwhile Medical Council of India (MCI).
It shall be applicable to all new medical colleges proposing to be established and to the established medical colleges proposing to increase their annual MBBS intake from the academic year 2021-22.
The new Regulation has deleted the quantum of land required for setting up a medical college and its affiliated teaching hospitals (all buildings are expected to conform to existing building bye-laws). It defines the minimum requirements of space for all student-centric areas in the institution and the functional areas required.
The standards outline the sharing of all available teaching spaces by all departments (compared to the inflexibility in the regulations so far) thereby mandating all teaching spaces to be enabled for e-learning and also digitally linked to one another (it was only desirable earlier).
Under the new Regulation, a well-equipped ‘skills laboratory” for training students is essential now. It also defines a Medical Education Unit for training medical teachers in educational pedagogy. The space required for Library and the number of books and journals have been rationalised and reduced.
Student counselling services have been mandated recognising the increasing stress observed amongst medical students and residents in recent times.
Recognising that a well-functioning hospital is at the core of medical training, the new regulation now mandates the availability of a fully functional 300-bed multi-speciality hospital for at least two years at the time of application for establishing a new medical college.
The beds required in the various departments of the teaching hospital have been rationalised to align with the annual student intake, teaching time to be spent in the clinical specialities and the minimum clinical material required for undergraduate medical training which has resulted in about 10 per cent reduction in teaching bed needs compared to the earlier regulations.
The human resource of teaching faculty has also been rationalised in the new Regulation. Over and above the minimum prescribed faculty, provision for “visiting faculty” has been made to enhance the quality of training.
Two new teaching departments have now become mandatory in all medical college hospitals for the training of undergraduate medical students. These include the Department of Emergency Medicine (which has replaced the earlier Casualty Department) and will ensure access and prompt, an appropriate response to emergencies particularly trauma; and the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation which shall fill a large gap for those in need of comprehensive rehabilitative care.
