The Medical Council of India (MCI) has proposed the syllabus for MBBS (Rural) course, to be commenced soon. The four-and-a-half-year course is formulated with an aim to produce more doctors to serve in villages. As per the plan, as many as 50 students will be selected from each state of India. They will be taught in a rural setting, as to make them efficient enough to serve their first formative years after MBBS, in rural parts of the country.
The MBBS graduates would then serve in their own district, for the first ten years of their career. Dr Ketan Desai, President of MCI, stated that the students, who are trained under the MBBS (Rural) program, would not be allowed to practice in urban areas of the country, for the first ten years of their career in medicine. With this program, it is predicted that the shortage of doctors in rural parts of the country will be lessened. In the present time, the doctor- patients’ ratio is 1:1500.
Through the proposed model, the doctors would be trained in three different phases, which would include teaching, training and learning, to serve the rural India. The doctors for the program will be selected on the basis of their performance in the intermediate examination (10+2), with Physics, Chemistry and Biology as compulsory subjects of study, from a recognized Board. The applicants, who have studied in village schools of India, would be given first preference.
