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Medical Colleges in Karnataka Struggle with Teaching Staff Shortage
Cited at a Recent Conference
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In Karnataka’s smaller medical colleges, one common problem persists: a lack of teaching faculty. Doctors share concerns over ongoing teacher shortages in various healthcare institutions. The National Medical Commission (NMC) has issued show-cause notices to governmental colleges for insufficient faculty and infrastructural issues. Despite the promising economic development, an influx of medical colleges has outpaced the requisite support for teaching staff and research.
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Despite the advance in medical education across Karnataka’s growing medical colleges, teachers are still in short supply. Many doctors cited budget and policy issues as contributors to the staffing problem. At a recent conference in Bengaluru, faculty members underscored the shortage of teaching staff in larger and smaller hospitals, ultimately hampering the quality of medical education.
Choosing Between Quality and Quantity
One of the prominent papers discussed at the conference highlighted Dr. Ramesh S. Bilimagga’s findings. As medical chief at HCG Hospital, he cited the “boom in the number of medical colleges, but a lack of adequate teaching faculty” as a primary concern. Similarly, Naveen Thimmaiah, editorial director at Kidwai Memorial Institute of Oncology, noted that many have not been able to meet the essential criteria for new medical colleges, such as an active research publication and an H-index of five or more.
Finding Solutions: Research Penetration and Policy Mends
To tackle the issues, Dr. Sujatha Rathod, director of medical education atattributed delays in senior resident and assistant professor recruitment to internal reservation policies. "While we are providing financial resources, we need to work on policy and recruitment to ensure an equalsector service quality and capacity," she added.
Against this backdrop, NMC’s show-cause letters remain an authorities call for remedy and policy review on what went wrong. Given the task at hand, immediate policy realignment is vital. Meanwhile, a research deficit is another issue fueled by the rapid increase in educational seats; it highlights a call for better appointments of researchers.
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This item, published on May 29, 2025 at 08:45 pm IST, titled by "Bengaluru: In Karnataka’s medical colleges, especially those in smaller towns, one issue continues to crop up — no one wants to go there to teach." The article was authored by "Sujitha devadas", edited by "TRUSTIA", and마uxed by the author.
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