somashekhar

In India the situation is just about OK. at 17 years you complete high school and enter graduate medical school (college as it is known here). By 22.5 years you have completed graduate medicine including a one year internship. Then you do pediatrics for 3 years which includes neonatal rotations for about 6-9 months. So by 25.5 years you are a pediatrician. Then you take up a subspeciality/superspeciality like Neonatology which you do for three years. So by 28.5 years you can be a specialist in Neonatology. Is that middle aged? It would be difficult to study medicine faster than that. And as medicine explodes this time will also be insufficient. PhD is not a chosen topic. THE CATCH --> There are about a maximum of 4-6 Neonatal positions in a country of 1 billion people. Additional 10-14 positions have sprung up in the last year or so but these specialists will not be able to teach in most MCI accredidated medical colleges. AN EARLIER CATCH --> Getting into Pediatric residency is a tough job almost about 30,000 candidates vie for about 300 positions year after year and some students may take a period of 1-3 year before they can enroll into a residency program. This is one of the main reasons for flight of human capital to other countries for education. For the past few years many of them are returning back and offering services at corporate hospitals across the country. Unfortunately educational and public institutes have not benefitted.

super link. when do the links to HT 2008 come up?