Amend Varsity norms, medicos urge CM

CHENNAI: Widening the rift between medical students and the TN Dr MGR Medical University, the TN Medical Students’ Association has appealed to Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa to step in and “provide justice” for the first-year students, detained by the varsity’s regulations.Reacting to vice-chancellor Dr Mayilvahanan Natarajan’s statement that he was planning to introduce dual-evaluation for UG medicos in all medical colleges affiliated to the university, the students have called it a “delay tactic aimed at distracting the Medical Council of India (MCI)”.Continuing their call for the new marking regulations to be withdrawn, parents of medicos have issued a statement to the effect that failing them on this basis will “affect their future by showing them as below-par students and affect them psychologically”. They have also pointed out that all previous batches passed out on the basis of the previous marking regulations and that these were not insisted on by the MCI. “In fact, even private medical universities here have the normal regulations, giving them better results than us, though we would have actually scored more marks,” lamented a association member.As specified by the MCI, there are five modes of evaluation for each subject — two written papers, one practical paper, viva and internal component. The written papers comprise half the portion while the rest encompass the entire semester’s portion. The MCI requires 50 per cent marks in the written exams, practical and viva put together (150/300 marks) while the varsity insists on 50 per cent marks in each component. A failure to get these marks meant that 1,268 of 3,175 first year medicos were not able to carry forward to the next year, according to the varsity. This has led to a flurry of protests.Despite the V-C stating that he had written to MCI to get rid of this ‘break system’ that prevented the students from proceeding to the next year if they failed a semester, he should be able to implement it as “it was anyway followed in AIIMS and other reputed varsities,” concluded an association member.