The announcement of preponing medical entrance examination for post-graduate courses at short notice has stunned students.
This is inconvenient and could affect their career, they fear.
The national board of examination has come out with a new date for holding nation-wide examination for post-graduate medical entrance. This includes MS, MD and diploma courses (NEET-PG).
Medical post-graduate (PG) aspirants are shocked to get the dates of NEET-PG examinations. It will be held online between November 23 and December 6 this year in 33 cities across the country.
Earlier, All India PG entrance examinations used to be held in the second week of January. Hence students were expecting NEET-PG will also be held in the second week of January 2013. This was indicated by the MCI in March 2012.
But advancing the examinations by two months has shocked students. Students will get admissions to PG courses in various institutes all over the nation only after clearing this examination.
A doctor from Maharashtra, who does not wish to be quoted, told this newspaper that preparations of NEET-PG are exhaustive. It includes 19 subjects, which are otherwise studied over four-and-a-half years.
Students start preparing for the examinations after completion of internship in March.
According to prior announcement and past experience, students plan to complete the studies by January. But pre-ponement by months has brought a situation of panic and depression.
Moreover, students try to seek admission to other PG institutes like PGI, Chandigarh, AIIMS, New Delhi and DNB.
All these examinations are always conducted in May and November bi-annually. These examinations have different patterns of testing. But this year all the dates are colliding in November.