Kohima, July 9 (MTNews):According to a top health department official, Nagaland is having trouble finding local specialists to fill faculty positions at the two newly established medical colleges that will begin operating from next year. This information was made public by the health director, Dr. Visasieu Kire, during the Nagaland Medical Students’ Association’s (NMSA) 24th general conference, which was held at the ATI Complex here with the subject “Learn to serve mankind.”
196 specialists are now employed by the state as regular in-service physicians in a variety of clinical and management positions, but the Indian Public Health Standards 2012 report say that the state is still in need of specialists for district hospitals and other health units. Without specifying the precise deficit, Kire said that the opening of two medical colleges—one in each of the districts of Kohima and Mon—for senior residents and teaching staff will result in a greater need for specialists.
MBBS alone will not qualify one to be a faculty member of a medical college, she added, and each medical college will need at least 88 faculties for 22 distinct departments on the first year of start. A letter of permit (LoP) for the first medical college in Kohima will be finalized by October, according to Kire, although it will be challenging to fill the 88 academic positions, such as professor and associate professor.
She bemoaned the lack of interest in preclinical research in the state, saying that as MBBS students, now is the ideal moment for them to undertake these studies, publish their findings in journals, and get admission to the faculty of medical colleges. “Because it is our medical college, we might try to join as professors,” she suggested.