ESIC Medical College PG students demand rollback of faculty transfer orders

NEW DELHI : More than 60 postgraduate (PG) medical students from the Employees’ State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) Medical College and Hospital New Delhi have been protesting against the recently-announced faculty transfers since Wednesday. The protesting students of the premier medical college located in Basaidarapur of the national capital are demanding a rollback of the faculty transfer order as it will cause shortage of teaching staff and affect their training.

According to ESIC’s annual transfer order dated May 20, a total of 49 faculty (90% of total faculty strength) members are being transferred out of the New Delhi campus but only 38 faculty members are being transferred in the institute and hence creating a shortage of 11 teachers.

“This will lead to huge academic loss to all the residents. The new faculty being transferred here may not have expertise in the thesis topics given, causing hindrance in completion of thesis,” PG medical students of ESIC, New Delhi said in a letter to Postgraduate medical education board of National Medical Commission (NMC).

The students said that the transfer also violates the NMC rules which says that faculty can't be transferred mid academic session if it creates deficiency. “The transfer of the whole faculty will lead to disruption in our normal learning process. It will cause derecognition of the department and our careers being at stake,” students said while requesting NMC to take necessary action to stop the transfer.

ESIC Medical Colleges: 213 doctors transferred

ESIC had on May 20 ordered an annual general transfer of 213 doctors who teach at ESIC’s medical colleges located in West Bengal, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, New Delhi, Haryana, Mumbai, Telangana, Rajasthan and Bihar.

“We are very distressed and are feeling very frustrated because our academics , ongoing thesis, research projects and super specialty services are going to get jeopardized and our career is going to be at risk with the unjustified ESIC faculty transfer notification,” says the letter to the medical superintendent of ESIC hospital.

The students said that they are protesting to demand rollback of ESIC faculty transfer orders and to save their careers.

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Explaining the risk of derecognition of the PG medical courses in the institute, a Resident Doctors Association (RDA) member of ESIC New Delhi told Careers360 on the condition of anonymity. "The transfer is ill-planned, random and haphazard. The transferring committee has no experience in Medical education and have not been on the post of academic institutions and against NMC guidelines. The committee members are not associated with teaching of the postgraduate students and lack of requisite experience in Medical education teaching. The committee members have no insight about the students future and their career and quality of the teaching being impaired due to the transfer.”

The RDA member said the transfer could derail the career of the postgraduate student. “Students research projects are ongoing under their teachers and guide. The importance of the guide to the postgraduate is like that of a father training the child and nurturing them. This loss will be immense to the students,” he said.

ESIC’s annual transfer order also shows that while 36 faculty members are being transferred out of the Chennai campus, only 27 faculty members are being transferred in. This will create a shortage of nine teachers at ESIC Chennai campus. Nearly 300 MBBS students have been protesting at ESCI Chennai since Tuesday.