Medical varsity honours physicians, teachers

Updated on: Monday, September 06, 2010

Physicians of eminence and medical teachers were on Sunday honoured as part of University Day and Teacher's Day celebrations hosted by Tamil Nadu Dr. MGR Medical University.

Health Minister M.R.K. Panneerselvam presented Lifetime Achievement Awards to 21 distinguished physicians and Best Teacher awards to 26 doctors.

Mr. Panneerselvam said the government had been engaged in efforts to fill up existing vacancies and improve health infrastructure. As part of efforts to start at least one medical college in every district in the State, the government had sanctioned six of them.

While three had already been established, three more would be coming up next year, he said.

Noting that there were an estimated 6 lakh doctor vacancies, Mr. Panneerselvam said there was also an acute dearth of medical PGs. The Centre was in the process of revising the teacher-student ratio for PG courses to 2:1 (two students under one professor), he said.

Health Principal Secretary V. K. Subburaj stressed the need to increase PG seats in various specialties. Pointing out that in countries such as the U.S. every undergraduate medical student got an opportunity to pursue post-graduate education, he said the Medical Council of India (MCI) too was engaged in efforts to increase opportunities for PG education.

The MCI was also seeking to bring about radical changes in the medical curriculum in order to make medical education more contemporary, Mr. Subburaj said.

MGR Medical University Vice-Chancellor Mayil Vahanan Natarajan said this was the first time that the university was honouring medical teachers, including those in the private sector, as part of its annual day celebrations.

The MGR Medical University also signed an MoU with the Madras Medical College and Stanley Medical College for sharing of clinical and academic material.

DME-in-Charge V. Kanagasabai, MMC Dean J. Mohanasundaram and former DME S. Vinayagam also participated.

Medical varsity honours physicians, teachers

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