Old School Medicine

Balancing all the pros and cons, the overall experience was different and enriching for me. I appreciate it more now especially the skills I learnt there have made me a more adjustable person. Ragging is something that should stop, but then again insolence towards seniors should not be tolerated either.

I sat the CBSE AIPMT. I think it's called NEET UG now. I don't really remember how much I scored. All I know it was just enough to get over the line. Well I didn't get much of a choice which college to opt for. In hindsight doing my undergrad here was probably the best choice I made.

Course structure is quite old school. It has hardly changed in the last 50 odd years. It is based a lot on rote memory rather than problem solving, unlike the West. If you are diligent you will build a good knowledge bank, but approaching the patient is not well taught, something that bites once you start practicing. But this particular problem is wide spread in all medical schools across the country. I would say less focus on research than bigger centers.

I'd never thought a question about a medical internship would be asked. No one gives it enough importance to ever talk about it. Yes, internship in compulsory in every medical college. It is mandatory to complete 1 full year to get your MBBS degree. The stipend when I started was 1700 rupees a month ( enough to pay the mess fees). After a few protests it was increased to 7500 rupees a month. The experience is deplorable.

Unfortunately, the concept of placements doesn't yet exist in medical colleges. However, I would expect in the next few years that big corporate hospitals recruit fresh graduates on the basis of their soft skills and then make them sign a bond to work with them and end up with a post graduate degree.

Difficult to come by, these events were shameful and quite disgraceful. They were only to suite someone's ego. There was no standardization of the events. Even the name wasn't the same every year! They were only attended by our college students. Not big.

Feasible. I paid on of the highest fees in college being UR ( that is not unrecognized, it is unreserved, some quota bullshit). About 80000 rupees for the whole course. Including tuition, hostel and mess fees. Despite that students would forge income certificates to pay a quarter of that.

It is a government college. I guess that is a subsidy in its self. I paid a pittance compared to the same course in private colleges. Though there were a few scholarships for student who were not UR (unreserved).

Hostel facilities were as expected. We ended up employing a cook and we decided our own menu's. The costs were split between 20 odd students. We only received 2 hours of water supply a day. That was also the drinking water supply. If that is not enough, no western toilets/washing machines/dryers.

I think that is one thing medical colleges have maintained. We are directly supervised by our seniors. Some of them 10 years senior. As the hospital is attached to the college, there is a lot of intermixing. Yes, of course the seniors were mostly useful.

The exam structure was quite troublesome. We have 19 subjects spread across 9 semesters. With practicals and written examinations for all. The practicals could last 2 days for some subjects. Most subjects had 2 written papers of 3 hours each. Add that to classes starting at 8 am, ending at 4 pm. Then to be taught with patients in the evening supervised by a postgraduate doctor.

The admission was via the counselling after making the cut-offs for AIPMT. AIPMT is the biggest medical exam akin to AIEEE for engineering. So, basically look at the newspaper for the advertisement, the coaching centers will inform you or like me some 'nosy aunty' will tell your mother.

The faculty was amazing. They were less approachable than I would have liked. But they knew what they were talking about as they were so experienced. Despite that most of them were less than interested in teaching as they would make a quick buck doing private practice. But it wasn't one sided, we the students were not as proactive to attend all the clinics/lectures as after one gets their degree you aren't guaranteed post graduation. It's another entrance exam although more objective, it comes with MBBS honors playing no role. Just another reason to attend more coaching. Yes, fully qualified doctors instead of practicing are sitting in dingy rooms solving MCQ's