We are in a world where students are more self aware and conscious than they have ever been. Students are today more aware of their capabilities, aims, mission in life, and are much more alert. Not only this, but there is much more in terms of the awareness that a Class X or XII would know off owing to the era of competition.

There were times when students and their parents did not look beyond and engineering or medical degree. We seem to have a long way from it, today. Let’s look at some reasons why the latter is not a priority amongst students anymore. One can argue the reason on why these courses have lost their charm or are not as popular as they were before. On one hand we have other courses gaining momentum and also are somehow not that tough to get into and also end up being better pay master at the end of it all.  On the other hand we can also blame the loosing popularity of an MBBS course to how it’s evolved over the years.

The changes

A medical degree has never been easy! That is given, whether it was getting into a good medical college, completing the degree or even for that matter scope once you were done. Somehow over the years, all these aspects seem to be on upward trend in terms of getting tougher.

The course has become more time consuming, changing the duration of the course from five and a half years to six and a half, increasing it but another year. The same now includes the last year being spent in rural areas for training purposes as per the recent government policies. Although the decision is still pending but some of the states have already started with this system. The decision for introducing mandatory postings at rural areas has been introduced to solve shortage of doctors in villages. 

Only MBBS ? Rejected!

Also let us not forget that once you complete your MBBS course, it is not of much importance as the obsession to rise to the top does not end here. The primary MBBS degree is pretty much a vestigial degree unless suffix of more qualifiers is added to it. In this rat race, the completion of post graduation adds to the pressure of completing a super-specialization. So somehow, even though you’d though that you will be set for life after clearing a medical entrance exam or completing your medical degree you spend some as many as 10 years in just making a way for yourself between your degrees and education. Let’s face it, we are in system where a plain Jane MBBS is only going to get you rebuttal. 

Patient Doctor ratio – Alarming

India as a country still seems to be in its growth phase. We are yet to come to our full potential and that is somehow the case for the kind of cycle we expect our doctors to face. As per the Union Health Ministry figures there are as many as 6.5 lakh doctors in India, which bring our doctor patient ratio to be somewhere around 1:1,700. The World Health Organisation states that a minimum of 1:1,000 need s to followed in order to have an efficient and smooth system. This in any ways does not lessen the pressure on a doctor when he is practicing.

So even though we might have better options available for students to venture into, the current state of affairs for medical students is no excuse why students should not opt for the course.