DM and MCh training rules under PGMER-23

The qualifications

PGMER-23 recognises 32 DM and 16 MCh qualifications (Annexure 2).

DM: Cardiac Anaesthesia; Cardiology; Child and Adolescent Psychiatry; Clinical Haematology; Clinical Immunology and Rheumatology; Clinical Pharmacology; Critical Care Medicine; Endocrinology; Geriatric Mental Health; Hepatology; Infectious Disease; Interventional Radiology; Medical Gastroenterology; Medical Genetics; Medical Oncology; Neonatology; Nephrology; Neuro-Anaesthesia; Neurology; Neuro-radiology; Onco-Pathology; Organ Transplant Anaesthesia and Critical Care; Paediatric and Neonatal Anaesthesia; Paediatric Cardiology; Paediatric Critical Care; Paediatric Gastroenterology; Paediatric Hepatology; Paediatric Nephrology; Paediatric Neurology; Paediatric Oncology; Pulmonary Medicine; Virology.

MCh: Endocrine Surgery; Gynaecological Oncology; Hand Surgery; Head and Neck Surgery; Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary Surgery; Neurosurgery; Paediatric Cardio Thoracic Vascular Surgery; Paediatric Orthopaedics; Paediatric Surgery; Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery; Reproductive Medicine and Surgery; Surgical Gastroenterology; Surgical Oncology; Urology; Vascular Surgery; Cardio Vascular and Thoracic Surgery.

Annexure 6 lists the six-year courses: DM Neurology and MCh Neurosurgery. Annexure 4 lists post-doctoral certificate courses (PDCC); the Annexure 5 list of post-doctoral fellowships carries no entries in the Gazette text.

Each course has feeder MD, MS or DNB specialties, set out in Annexure 7 — see the NEET-SS page.

How training is organised

The rules for broad-specialty residents largely apply here too; the MD/MS training page sets them out in full. For DM and MCh:

• Super-specialty students are called senior residents (Section 7.1) and work as full-time resident doctors (Section 5.2(ii)).
• Thesis research and writing is required of all super-specialty students (Section 5.2(iii)).
• E-logbook, updated weekly and authenticated monthly by the guide; MCh students must record the surgical procedures they assisted in or performed (Section 5.2(vi)–(vii)).
• To sit the final examination, a poster or podium presentation at a national, zonal or state conference, or a first-author paper published or accepted in a journal of the specialty (Section 5.2(x)).
• Research methodology, ethics, and BCLS/ACLS courses, expected in the first year and required for the examination (Section 5.2(xi)–(xiii)).
• No migration to another institution (Section 4.7).
• The District Residency Programme is written for MD/MS and diploma students, not for DM and MCh.

Leave and attendance

The same leave rules apply to all PG students (Section 5.5): 20 days of paid casual leave and 5 days of academic leave a year, a weekly holiday subject to exigencies, and maternity and paternity leave under government rules. Excess leave extends the course by the same number of days, and 80% attendance is needed to sit the examination. On the FAQs’ working, a three-year course has 939 working days, so 751 days are needed.

The final examination

The university conducts the examination, no more than twice a year and 4–8 months apart, with at least four examiners including two external, one from outside the state (Sections 8.1–8.2).

• Theory: four papers of 100 marks each — Paper 1 on basic medical sciences, Paper 4 on recent advances.
• Clinical/practical: one long case and two short cases, special investigative techniques, and an OSCE. MCh candidates are also examined in surgical procedures. The viva covers the whole subject.
• Thesis: 20 marks within the clinical/practical total, assessed by an external examiner from outside the state, with a viva on it.

Failing either head means re-appearing in both. No grace marks. Every script is valued twice, a third time if the two differ by 15% or more, and there is no revaluation after results (Section 8.4).