MBBS might get easier, no service to the country now required! smart or disastrous?

Govt may shelve rural stint plan for medicos
7 Dec 2007, 0001 hrs IST,Kounteya Sinha,TNN

NEW DELHI: The Union health ministry may shelve its plans of making a one-year rural stint compulsory for all MBBS students from the next academic session.
 
Pressure from medical students, agitating across the country against the ministry's decision, has now made health minister A Ramadoss set up a high level committee, which will travel across 20 states to assess the grievances of the students.
 
Headed by Dr Sambhava Rao, vice-chancellor of NTR University of Health Sciences, the committee will give its recommendations within a month, after which a final decision on rural posting will be taken.
 
Ramadoss said on Thursday, "It's not that MBBS will become one-year longer. Students will have one-year internship within their five-and-a-half-year MBBS programme. They will have to spend four months each in a public health centre, community health cell and district headquarters and will serve under the district health officer. They will be given a monthly stipend of Rs 8,000-10,000 as an incentive."
 
Health secretary Naresh Dayal told TOI, "We don't know if introducing a compulsory rural stint will be possible from this session as the MCI Act has to be amended."
 
Ramadoss added, "The government has subsidized medical education. While studying in private colleges may cost Rs 4 lakh, the annual fee in a government college is just Rs 4,000 in Tamil Nadu. So by asking them to serve India's poor just for a year, we aren't asking too much. Moreover, the stint will help them gain experience."