Patients in Punjab medical colleges suffer in absence of interns

Balwant Garg
Tribune News Service
Faridkot, February 6

Since January 1, eight medical colleges in the state are without medical interns.

After completing their four-and-a-half-year MBBS degree, every medical student has to complete one-year of compulsory internship in various specialisations.

During the internship, these young doctors help the medical colleges in giving various services and in lieu of these services, they are paid monthly stipend.

The latest batch of about 1,200 interns in eight medical colleges in the state completed their required clinical training on December 31, 2020, and left the colleges, but the new batch is yet to join.

In routine, after one batch completes the internship and leaves on December 31, the next batch joins on January 1.

Earlier, the final-year exams used to be conducted in November, and students would join their internship on January 1.

But this time, there was inordinate delay in the exams of final-year students due to COVID-19, so no new interns were available on January 1.

Interns have an important duty of clerking patients as soon as they appear in the outpatient department or admitted to the ward and keeping clear and concise records of the patients.

The interns are to ensure laboratory and order investigations of the patients, putting these reports in order, writing periodic progress-notes of the indoor patients, giving services in various clinical procedures in the Regular OPD, Emergency OPD, Ward, Operation theatre, Labor ward, Recovery Room, ICU/NICU, Laboratory/Pathology Rooms, or Radiology and Imaging Dept.

Intern is also to write discharge summaries of the patients , working on night, weekend and holiday duties as per the assignment put up by the department, and formal handing over of patients to the next intern on duty.

The Baba Farid University of Health Sciences (BFUHS) has announced the schedule to complete the final-year exams by the mid of March and interns would be available from April 1.

So, the medical colleges will be without interns for the next two months.

While the medical colleges with post graduate courses are managing their work with the help of PG students, other medical colleges are facing difficulties in the absence of interns.

After COVID-19 pandemic, the state government has announced to increase the stipend of MBBS interns from Rs 9,000 to Rs 15,000 per month.

After completing their internship, these doctors are eligible for the NEET-PG exam to get admission in MD and MS courses. While last year the NEET-PG was conducted on January 5, this year it is scheduled to be held on April 18.

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