Draft NMC guidelines issued for post graduate medical courses

Hospitals wanting to start postgraduate medical courses should have a minimum of 200 beds, 75 per cent of which should be occupied throughout the year by patients requiring inpatient care, according to the draft minimum standard of requirements for such facilities released by the National Medical Commission.

It said a minimum of 15 per cent of the total beds in departments imparting post-graduate training should be Intensive Care Unit (ICU) beds or High Dependency Unit (HDU) beds exclusively of that department.

Hospitals will also compulsorily have four functional departments of biochemistry, pathology, microbiology and radio diagnosis, the guidelines for 2023, on which the NMC has sought comments from the public till September 15, said.

With the number of beds in such hospitals, there shall be a proportionate increase in the faculty, infrastructure and other staff in radio-diagnosis, anaesthesia, pathology, microbiology, and biochemistry subjects. Also, there shall be a proportional increase in the faculty and infrastructure, if the workload in the department is more.

The departments shall have an adequate number of the latest in-house equipment, according to curriculum requirements, operated and managed by the respective department to train postgraduate students.

According to draft guidelines, the average daily out-patient attendance should not be less than 50 in general medicine; general surgery; paediatrics; orthopaedics; obstetrics and gynaecology; respiratory medicine; ophthalmology; dermatology, venereology and leprosy; psychiatry; emergency medicine; and family medicine. Average daily out-patient attendance in other clinical broad and super specialities should be at least 25.

Post-graduate students pursuing surgical courses should get operation theatre training for at least two full days a week. Second year onwards, trainees will get training as first assistant/supervised performance for two full days a week, the guidelines state. Every faculty will preferably get two full days of operation table independently with or without supervision. The decision of the unit chief will be followed. Every unit will perform a minimum three major and six minor surgeries on operation day of the Unit.

There shall be one teaching room for each teaching department with a capacity to accommodate an adequate number of students for clinical case discussions or demonstrations. Each such room shall have audio-visual facilities. The institution shall have adequate in-house laboratory and imaging facilities for the training of post-graduate students, which should be fully run and governed by the respective department.

There should be digital data of records of investigations done in various departments or laboratories, the draft guidelines stated. Total biochemical investigations should be at least 15 per cent of the total daily OPD load of the hospital and total microbiological investigations should be at least five per cent of the total daily OPD load of the hospital, the draft guidelines stated.