BENGALURU: Many PG students working as resident doctors in various hospitals have one grouse: they have been only on Covid duty and did not get any significant clinical experience. Postgraduation plays an important role in shaping the career of medical students. Three years of PG gives maximum learning exposure to choose further sub-speciality courses.
However, the resident doctors said that since the pandemic broke out nearly eight months ago, they have not learnt any special skills. Without any clinical experience, they may find it difficult to treat patients in future, they said.
The resident doctors even submitted a letter recently to the Bangalore Medical College Research Institute (BMCRI) dean and director, on the grievances of the PG students. They are awaiting the dean’s reply.
Dr Dayanand Sagar, who is former president of Karnataka Resident Doctors’ Association, and is doing his PG from BMCRI said that since the pandemic struck, some hospitals like Bowring and Victoria, which were converted into Covid hospitals, stopped treating non-Covid patients.
This has also stopped us from treating them and gaining practical knowledge. If this goes on for long, we will not have any competent doctors.” “While on Covid duty, we do not learn anything as it’s the same treatment protocol, where we give patients medicine and check on saturation levels,” he added.
Their other grievance relates to fees. The students stated that in Maharashtra, the academic fees has been waived during the Covid period. But in Karnataka, students are asked to pay the fees. “Though we are not learning anything academic since Covid-19 struck, we are still being asked to pay fees for this year. The government needs to think and start all non- Covid services for us to start our practice.
Especially the surgical branches have barely had any experience in the past seven months,” said a second year PG student. A final year student from Mysore Medical College said, “The postgraduates of 2019-20 have not been given sub-speciality postings. How can we think of super speciality, if there is no insight into sub-specialities?”