The Maharashtra government has created the much needed teaching posts in 14 government medical colleges (GMCs) across the state.

For long, the colleges were under the MCI scanner for inadequate staff and were repeatedly warned about filling the posts of teaching and senior resident doctors. It is for the first time that the state government has taken cognizance of the issue and created 351 teaching posts, through the Directorate of Medical Education and Research (DMER), across 14 GMCs.

The new 351 posts include 38 posts of professors, 67 associate professors, 217 lecturers/assistant professors, 11 medical officers, 9 child health doctors, 5 epidemiology and 4 statisticians.

"The government has realised the urgent need to fill the teaching posts as per MCI norms. DMER has created 351 posts. We now plan to conduct similar posts in nursing and physiotherapy colleges which too are facing threat of
disaffiliation by the Maharashtra University of Health Sciences," said DMER head Dr Pravin Shingare.

The state government and DMER have been under tremendous MCI pressure for many years for filling up these posts and managed affairs by transferring teachers temporarily to the colleges being inspected. Medical education minister Vijay Kumar Gavit had been promising to fill all vacant posts since the time he took charge of the ministry. But it is for the first time that something concrete has happened.

Source: TOI