Across Telangana’s new government medical colleges, 26 depts empty, 31 with single teachers: Doctors’ survey

Around a quarter of departments at government medical colleges (GMCs) in Telangana don’t have a single professor, while around 6% of them are without any faculty and staffed only by senior residents, reveals a recent survey by senior residents in the state.

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The study, conducted by the Telangana Senior Resident Doctors Association (TSRDA), also found that many departments lack regular teachers and are staffed by temporary appointees. The newer medical colleges , which mushroomed across the state in recent years, and non-clinical disciplines, such as anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, forensic medicine and toxicology and social and preventive medicine, fare the worst.

The survey, carried out in the last week of January, has once again put the spotlight on the acute shortage of teaching staff at Telangana’s medical colleges, many of which have recently been upgraded from district and area hospitals. The students and residents at these institutes have been flagging the shortfall and its impact on their training.

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Telangana Medical Colleges: GMCs with zero, single faculty

For this study, TSRDA looked at the faculty status of around 400 departments across 36 GMCs in Telangana. They found that 26 of these departments have zero faculty members across the three levels – professor, associate professor and assistant professors – with one or two senior residents shouldering the academic burden of the entire department. As many as 31 departments reported having only a single teacher on board.

While the bulk of these departments are non-clinical ones, a few clinical sections, such as Dermatology, Venereology and Leprology (DVL) and Radiology at GMC Jogulamba Gadwal and Radiology at GMC Khammam, too, only have senior residents. While the former institute has enrolled 50 undergraduate (UG) students per batch, the latter has an intake of 100.

Of all surveyed departments, around 100 are running without a professor, the most senior academic position, while almost half of them – around 200 – are without associate professors. The count of departments with no entry-level faculty – assistant professors – and senior residents is around 90 and 16, respectively.

The newly-created GMCs are suffering the most from paucity of staff. Listed below are the medical colleges with one or more zero-faculty departments.

In fact, most of the senior medical staff in the state is concentrated in the few established institutes, namely Osmania Medical College, Hyderabad; Gandhi Medical College, Secunderabad and Kakatiya Medical College, Warangal.

NMC norms on medical college faculty

The colleges in the state severely fall short of the faculty norms laid by the National Medical Commission (NMC) , the apex regulator for medical education and profession in the country.

The commission’s (Minimum Standard Requirements) for Establishment of New Medical College/Increase of seats in MBBS Course) Guidelines, 2023, mandate UG institutes to have anywhere between two and four faculty members in each department and catering to a batch of 50 students, with most departments required to employ at least one faculty member at each level as well as a senior resident. Similarly, the Postgraduate (PG) Medical Education Regulations, 2000 prescribe at least three faculty members for each broad specialty and super speciality discipline.

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The resident doctors underscored that the senior faculty members are essential for academic supervision, curriculum planning, conduct of examinations, postgraduate training and NMC inspections. In their absence, the colleges risk losing their approval or being denied permission to start PG programmes. Without adequate entry-level staff, everything from teaching to internal assessment to laboratory supervision takes a hit, they said.

“Medical education experts warn that such arrangements are academically unsustainable and place extreme workload pressure on junior faculty,” reads the TSRDA report.

Many of the departments, which do have teaching staff, have hired theirs on short-term contracts. In some instances, the departments are being entirely handled by contractual staff.

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The faculty shortage in government medical colleges has called into question the hurried manner in which Telangana pushed for new medical colleges without adequate staff and infrastructure and NMC’s failure to keep a check on it.

Telangana saw the steepest growth in medical colleges in recent years, as the central government has embarked on a mission to create 75,000 new medical seats in a span of five years. Until 2021, the state had 34 colleges offering MBBS, but in the last four years, it added at least 32 new ones. This proliferation was a result of the state’s aim of setting up at least one government medical college (GMC) in each of its 33 districts – a distinction it managed to achieve in 2024.

This was made possible due to NMC’s relaxation of its 2023 guidelines while approving the colleges. The regulator, last year, had issued notices to GMCs for failing to meet the norms, but ultimately allowed them to function.

The resident doctors have urged the government to fill the faculty vacuum. “TSRDA emphasizes that addressing these gaps is vital for maintaining high standards in medical training, ensuring better healthcare outcomes, and supporting the professional development of medical students,” said D Srinath, president of the organisation.