India’s largest body of doctors on Wednesday asked the Union health ministry not to increase the proportion of non-MBBS postgraduate faculty in paraclinical departments in medical colleges amid an emerging glut of MBBS paraclinical postgraduates looking for jobs.

The Indian Medical Association (IMA) has asked the health ministry to accept the 15 per cent limit the National Medical Council (NMC) has set for the proportions of non-MBBS postgraduate faculty in non-clinical subjects such as anatomy, biochemistry, and physiology.

“It is essential for (MBBS) students to study paraclinical subjects (integrated) with clinical subjects. (An) integrated curriculum cannot be taught by non-medical (non-MBBS) postgraduates,” the IMA wrote in a letter to Union health minister Mansukh Mandaviya.

Hundreds of non-MBBS paraclinical faculty, who have MSc or PhD degrees in anatomy, biochemistry, microbiology, pharmacology, or physiology, are currently teaching in government and private medical colleges across the country.

Medical college rules for decades allowed paraclinical departments to offer up to 30 per cent of faculty seats to non-MBBS postgraduates. But in October 2020, the NMC — the apex regulatory authority for medical education — slashed those limits to 15 per cent in anatomy, biochemistry, and physiology, and to zero in pharmacology and microbiology. In other words, all faculty in pharmacology or microbiology had to be MBBS-qualified postgraduates.

Representatives of the non-MBBS faculty have opposed the NMC move in Delhi High Court.

“We’ve coexisted with medical faculty for decades. Now the NMC order effectively meant no new appointments, it effectively snatched away my right to work anywhere in India,” said Ayan Das, general secretary of the National MSc Medical Teachers’ Association (NMMTA).

Das and other NMMTA members assert that they’re postgraduates from medical colleges and have successfully taught paraclinical subjects for years and reject claims that they are unsuitable to teach undergraduate MBBS students.

The IMA’s national president Sharad Agrawal said the letter was prompted by concerns that the health ministry appeared to be leaning in favour of reverting the limit to 30 per cent. The health ministry had last month directed the NMC to allow 30 per cent “for the time being” while the case is in court.

The All India Pre and Paraclinical Medicos Association (AIPPMA), an organisation of MBBS-qualified postgraduate teachers that is also opposed to non-MBBS faculty teaching paraclinical subjects, plans to organise a protest against the health ministry’s directive on July 20.

Members of the AIPPMA have argued that non-MBBS teachers were a “historical necessity” decades ago when the country lacked adequate numbers of postgraduate faculty in paraclinical subjects.

“But things have changed. Now we have ample numbers of MBBS-qualified postgraduates in these subjects — hundreds of them are looking for jobs,” said Anoop Gurjar, secretary-general of the All India Pre and Paraclinical Medicos Association.

Not all doctors, however, are opposed to non-MBBS faculty in medical colleges.

Anatomy, biochemistry, or microbiology are subjects that lend themselves to research and there is nothing wrong in having non-MBBS teachers in medical colleges — we find such teachers in medical schools across North America, said Ravi Kant, a senior surgeon and former director of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Rishikesh.