India has too few post graduate specialists

Post graduates seats in India are much less than in the US. The distribution is Cardiology 250 (US 781); Diabetology/Endocrinology 50 (US 251); Gastroenterology 93 (US 433); Hematology 13 (US 523); Nephrology 84 (US 416); Neurology 159 (US 592) and Oncology 48 (508).

Only 250 new cardiologists are added to the pool in India with largest number of heart patients in the world.

It's worse for diabetics. Even when the country is heading towards becoming the diabetes capital of the world, we have only 50 PG seats in endocrinology. The US, on the other hand, has 250 PG seats in this subject.

Tuberculosis is the sixth highest contributor to the number of deaths in India but the country has only 307 specialized doctors graduating in pulmonary medicine every year. 

Cancer the most feared disease has only 47 seats in India. In contrast, the US has 508 seats.

While a mother dies every 10 minutes in India, we have only around 1,400 obstetrics and gynaecology seats. There are about 93 seats in gastroenterology, as against 433 in the US, even when diarrhoeal diseases are the second highest contributor to deaths in India.

On the other hand, there are 5,833 para-clinical PG seats in the country. Pathology tops with 1,201 MD seats, microbiology has 724 and community medicine 736, biochemistry has been allotted 481 seats and physiology 672.

Doctors say every unit in a medical college in the country can accommodate up to five PG students, according to MCI norms. If that's the case, the number of PG seats can go up to 38,390 in the current scenario, but will that happen? (Source TOI).