Page 40 - 23rd Convocation Booklet

B
olstered by the huge support received from the executive of the government and a firm

political will, driven by a proactive target-oriented governing body which has eminent
stalwarts on board, led by an efficient and effective leadership, which has a strong backing

of hard-working devoted officers and staff members, run on well thought out standard operating
procedures, and fuelled by the very nature of its funding basis, wherein it is self-sustaining in its

finances, the National Board of Examination in Medical Sciences has scaled many Himalayan peaks

during the past five years, transforming the postgraduate medical education landscape in a big way.
In this rapid metamorphic process, the Board has opened new vistas of hope for the young doctors

wishing to take wings and fly. The number of postgraduate and postdoctoral seats has nearly doubled,
new well calibrated academic programmes have been incepted, new diploma programmes have been

set up, new fellowship programmes initiated which encourage doctors from other lands to come to

India and train, curricula of all existing programmes have been revised to match with the times, good
clinical practice guidelines have been laid down, and to inspire the service doctors to deepen their

depth of knowledge and acquire new skills, certain seats have been set apart for them to take benefit
of this thought. Let’s take a closer look at these developments which seed the landscape of higher

medical education in India with huge possibilities while eliminating the current divide that separates
the larger cities and towns from the countryside.

Enhancement of postgrad seats in accredited hospitals

Table 1: Increase in NBEMS National Board of Examination in Medical Sciences has taken a
accredited seats over the years number of active measures to facilitate accreditation of new
Year Number of Post
Graduate Seats government and privately-run hospitals for setting up academic

2016 4,586 hubs and commencing postgraduate and post-doctoral
2017 6,621
2018 7,245 programmes.
2019 7,783
2020 9,622 This has been done without compromising the standards of
2021 10,629 infrastructure and human resource necessary for learning and
2022 12,237
2023 13,200 training of those wishing to pursue higher education. Adequate
2024 14,409 safeguards have been taken to ensure that minimum accreditation
2025 16,077
2026 17,664 criteria are met in the accredited hospitals. Between 2016 and
2026, this has resulted in an increase of postgraduate, post-doctoral and post-MBBS diploma seats
from under six thousand to more than seventeen thousand (Table 1).

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