Hyderabad: There is a bitter fight between government doctors, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announcement increasing the retirement age of doctors may add to it.

Those who are retiring from teaching colleges want the government to increase the age of retirement while those who have not got promotions want associate and assistant professors to get their due. Since promotions have been stopped from 2013, the doctors are getting restless and want the state government to carry them out soon.

Principal secretary, health, R. Tiwari has asked the director of health and medical education Dr M. Ramani to draw up a list of doctors eligible for promotion.
Dr Ramesh Reddy, senior paediatrician at Niloufer hospital, said, “The shortage of teaching faculty in government colleges is because of the hour-glass system which has been in existence. We need to have a pyramid form of structure where those on the top can be easily replaced by a second level of teaching staff.”

While there are many associate professors in the teaching colleges, there is a dearth of professors as the associates have not been promoted. At the junior level, assistant professors are appointed but due to lack of promotions, most of them quit government service.

A senior doctor said, “The actual professional work of doctors starts only after 30 years of age. Almost 10 years are spent as assistant professors. If there is no time for research, many of them go over to the private sector.”

This view is countered by those who claim that their vast experience is of no use to government teaching colleges. Dr Kulashekar Rao, senior ophthalmologist, said, “An addition of two to five years is not going to do any harm. All the expertise of government doctors in the teaching side is being utilised by private hospitals. This is creating a deficit in teaching in government colleges. The government has to recognise that strengthening of medical education is equally important as is granting promotions to the existing cadre.”