Approval letter for PG course reaches Ahmedabad's BJ Medical College instead of city institution by same name; confusion cleared after weeks
Approval letter for PG course reaches Ahmedabad's BJ Medical College instead of city institution by same name; confusion cleared after weeks
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In a mistake that could have proved disastrous for medical students' careers, a letter of approval for a new postgraduate course in orthopaedics reached the wrong college, in the wrong city. The reason? Both institutions share the same name and had applied to the Medical Council of India (MCI) at the same time to start the course.
In June 2010, authorities at the city's BJ Medical College had sought permission from the MCI to start a postgraduate course in orthopaedics. The approval process for this can take months as permission is granted only after an MCI team conducts a physical inspection and sends a recommendation to the Centre, which reserves the right to approve new courses.
Around the same time, BJ Medical College in Ahmedabad applied for the same course.
Dr Renu Bharadwaj, dean of the city's BJ Medical College, said the confusion came to light many weeks later and it was too late by then.
"We had been waiting for weeks for the permission to come. The inspection had already been done, but when we didn't get the permission letter, we wrote to the MCI," said Bharadwaj. "First we didn't get a reply, and later we learnt that the permission letter had been mistakenly sent to Ahmedabad as the college had a similar name"
Finally, the permission letter arrived in the city a couple of weeks ago and the medical college will now start the process of interviewing medical graduates for admissions.
"Two postgraduate seats have been approved and the admission process will soon begin. The course will start in June," said Bharadwaj.
At the Ahmedabad college, two students were admitted after the letter arrived. When the college realised the mistake, it wrote to the MCI for a solution to the problem as the course at the institute was yet to be recognised while two students' had already been enrolled and now their careers were at stake. While authorities at BJ Medical College in Ahmedabad were unavailable for comment despite repeated calls, a senior MCI official confirmed that the college had been allowed to keep the two students though it would have to wait for the permission for the course to come in.
"The permissions don't come from the MCI, we just make recommendations. And though this was an old case, for the students' sake the college was allowed to continue; the college still has to wait for the letter of permission to regularise the course," said the official, adding that the postgraduate section of the college should be approached for more details.
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