'Only did COVID-19 duty': Karnataka resident doctors seek fee waiver for 2021-22

The resident doctors argue that they paid exorbitant fees last year, but have not received education in their specific fields chosen for post graduation.
Doctor using a stethoscope
Doctor using a stethoscope
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Resident doctors across Karnataka on Monday, June 21, submitted memorandums to their respective college deans, demanding a waiver of their fees for the academic year 2021-22. They also demanded a refund of their fees for the academic year 2020-21. The doctors, who are pursuing their MD degrees, say they have not learned how to treat non-COVID-19 patients since the pandemic began, and thus have not gained expertise in their respective fields chosen for post graduation. 

The doctors, under the aegis of Karnataka Association of Resident Doctors (KARD), said in a statement that they will organise Twitter storms and social media campaigns, and observe black badge days until their demands are met by the state Minister of Health Education Dr K Sudhakar. However, if they continue to be unheard, they will “resort to other hostile modes of dissent”, KARD said. 

“We pay a tuition fee of over Rs 1,00,000, which was Rs 29,000 two years ago. After we joined by paying this hiked fee, the pandemic began. And since then, we have only been doing COVID-19 duty. For what did we really pay the fee? According to our curriculum, workshops, continued medical education, research activities and hands-on training programmes had to be conducted for us, but none were conducted. In the past we had demanded delisting our college from COVID-19 so that we can treat non-COVID-19 patients and gain expertise in our specific field that we chose when we joined post graduation. This however, did not happen,” said Dr Namratha, President of Karnataka Association of Resident Doctors (KARD).

She further added, “We are demanding that the fee should be waived off as we couldn’t learn anything in the past year. We are also demanding that at least now, they give us an opportunity to treat other patients so that when we graduate, we will have expertise in our field.”

“This lack of experience will be very detrimental to our future careers. Because we have only treated COVID-19 patients, we won’t have expertise in the fields we chose and this can have serious repercussions. It will not be good for the patients and us both as we will have to limit the procedures we conduct, to those we have seen in college, which now is very little. We need more clinical experience to be good doctors,” said Madhukar Naidu, a super specialty resident from Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute (BMCRI). Dr Namratha also revealed that the situation of Super Speciality Resident doctors is also similar, as they have not received much education with regard to their respective fields due to COVID-19 duties. 

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