NEW DELHI: The Delhi Medical Council has highlighted a significant shortage of internship opportunities for Foreign Medical Graduates in the city’s medical colleges. The council said that the number of eligible candidates from the city is four times the available seats in the colleges and expressed its inability to accommodate them all.
“More than 1,000 students are desirous of starting internships in Delhi, but we have only called for applications from individuals with domicile in Delhi, which amounts to 230. However, there are only 60 seats available currently for internship training. Given the disparity between the number of seats and the number of applications received, we will not be able to provide internships even to FMGs from Delhi,” said Dr. Girish Tyagi, Secretary, DMC.
The council has urged the Centre to allow such FMGs to do internships at non-teaching hospitals like Gangaram, to save their academic year.
“To accommodate the large number of applicants for internship, we request that they be allowed to undergo internship training in non-teaching institutes so that their academic interests are not jeopardized,” a letter written to the National Medical Commission by the council read. Tyagi said the Centre should come up with a long-term solution by increasing the number of seats for FMGs in medical colleges.
“Every state medical council prefers FMGs from their respective states. We received over a thousand applications, but we only considered candidates from Delhi, not even from Noida and Gurgaon. Still, we could not accommodate them all. They will either have to seek internships in other states or wait for the next exam,” he added.