Govt announces superspeciality courses for NE doctors

Doctors from the Northeast will be allowed to undergo a super speciality course at leading medical institutes under a scheme launched by the government.
Union Minister of State for Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER) Jitendra Singh said today that the super-specialty courses for doctors from the eight Northeastern states will include provision for Doctor of Medicine (DM) and Master of Chirurgiae (Mch) courses in medical institutions outside Northeast as well as option of short duration training of up to six months in super-specialty.
Addressing a meeting of the Principal Secretaries of Health from North-Eastern States, Singh said that to begin with, a six-month training in Medical Oncology and Surgical Oncology will be undertaken from January 1, 2016 at the Adyar Cancer Institute, Chennai.

The cost and financial implications of this training course will be borne by the Ministry of DoNER. The same institute will also seek approval from Medical Council of India (MCI) to start a three-year DM Oncology and Mch Oncology Surgery degree course from next academic year.
The Minister said the decision to make a beginning with super-specialty training in Oncology was prompted by the statistical figures which indicated that the prevalence of cancer is highest in the country among North-Eastern states, with Mizoram, Nagaland and Meghalaya among the first three with the highest cancer prevalence, predominantly the cancer of head and neck.

Singh said the other non-communicable diseases like diabetes and heart attack have also shown an upsurge in the region. For this, he said, the DoNER Ministry has sought the collaboration of the Union Ministry of Health for their support through programmes meant for control of non-communicable diseases and at the same time, corporate hospitals have also been asked to come forward.