HYDERABAD: Four years after completing their year-long posting, over 100 postgraduate doctors deployed at the Telangana Institute of Medical Sciences (TIMS), Gachibowli during the Covid-19 pandemic continue to await formal recognition of their service.
The delay has affected their eligibility for assistant professor posts in government medical colleges (GMCs), as the health department has yet to acknowledge their service under senior residency.
In 2020, around 120 PG doctors from GMCs were deployed for emergency Covid duty at TIMS, with an assurance that their one-year service would be treated as senior residency under the administration of Osmania Medical College (OMC), a prerequisite to apply for assistant professor positions.
However, the doctors were issued experience letters from TIMS and not OMC, leaving their senior residency status in dispute. The TIMS certificate is not accepted by state GMCs, private medical colleges or the Health Ministry, as TIMS is not a recognised teaching institution under any state GMC. In contrast, hospitals such as ENT or Niloufer fall under OMC’s administrative control and are recognised for teaching purposes.
Dr Md Jahangir told TNIE: “We served during the peak of the Covid crisis, risking our lives. Now, our experience is not recognised anywhere. The certificate by TIMS is not valid, and we are not eligible for the upcoming assistant professor recruitment. It has left us in a difficult position.”
Doctors said they were not offered counselling for senior residency postings, a process usually conducted based on merit lists. Instead, they were directly informed of their postings at TIMS without being given any options or clear information about recognition. At the time, they were assured of experience certificates from OMC.
Dr Aishwarya E, a postgraduate from Kakatiya Medical College, who was among those posted at TIMS, said, “The authorities had told us our service would be considered during future departmental recruitments.
But when the experience certificate came, it was issued under TIMS and not OMC. In the 2022 assistant professor notification, there was no mention of any special consideration for TIMS candidates, and the same is the case with the 2025 notification.”
She, like many others, had to complete an additional year of senior residency in other colleges to become eligible for teaching posts.
Others who opted for super-speciality courses without repeating senior residency said their teaching career prospects remain uncertain due to the unresolved recognition of their TIMS service.
The latest notification issued by the Medical & Health Services Recruitment Board (MHSRB) on June 28 for the recruitment of 607 assistant professors under the director of medical education (DME) includes a provision of up to 20 points for service in state government institutions on a contract or outsourced basis.
However, it makes no mention of service at TIMS. Doctors said the health department’s failure to recognise their one-year service at TIMS has set back their academic careers.
Attempts by TNIE to seek responses from the DME and OMC principal went unanswered.