KOCHI: The union government has sanctioned 15 new PG medical seats at the Ernakulam Government Medical College. With the latest move, the medical college will have 26 PG seats. The centre has given the nod for 43 medical PG seats in total, of which 15 are for Kannur Government Medical College, while 13 are for the Alappuzha Government Medical College.
An official with the Ernakulam Government Medical College said the seats were sanctioned in the departments of anaesthesiology (2), orthopaedics (2), radio diagnostics (2), gynaecology (2), general medicine (1), general surgery (2), community medicine (1), forensic medicine (1), respiratory medicine(1) and ophthalmology (1).
“The procedures to launch the postgraduate courses will begin soon. We hope to start the new courses by next academic year,” said the official.
The newly allocated seats will help increase the department’s efficiency as the medical college’s super speciality block is scheduled to begin operations by October. “We have been demanding the introduction of new courses for the past 10 years. PG courses are an inevitable part of teaching institutions,” said Dr Sanil Kumar, a volunteer with the Justice Krishna Iyer movement that works for the development of the medical college.
Currently, the medical college has 11 medical PG seats in departments such as general medicine, paediatrics, psychiatry, pathology and microbiology. The demand to introduce new post-graduation courses at the college was earlier raised by doctors and the Kerala Government Medical College Teachers Association, highlighting that the residential system of postgraduate teaching can help deliver quality care to patients admitted with serious diseases.