Student challenges medical internship regulations in Gujarat

A student of NHL Medical College has approached the Gujarat High Court, challenging the National Medical Commission's (NMC) new regulations that seek to restrain internships to the college the student was enrolled in for the MBBS course.

According to the earlier regulations, MBBS students could take up their one-year mandatory internships with any medical college across the country after completion of four-and-a-half years of studies. 

They just needed consent from their own colleges as well as the colleges they were keen on interning at.

Petitioner Shruti Gupta wants to pursue an internship with a GMERS college in Vadodara, while she has completed her course from NHL Medical college in Ahmedabad. 

She approached both the colleges and sought an NOC to this effect but received no response following the NMC's Compulsory Rotating Medical Internship Regulation-2021. 

She made a representation to the NMC and filed a petition in the high court.

The student's advocate Mitul Shelat submitted that the new regulation regarding internship cannot be made applicable in the case of his client because she had taken admission to MBBS much before NMC came out with new internship regulation and the NMC Act itself came into effect.

The old regulation permits a student to opt for any medical college in the country for an internship.

After hearing the case, the bench of Chief Justice Aravind Kumar and Justice Ashutosh Shastri remarked that the petition appeared premature because the colleges concerned have not taken any decision on the student's request. 

The student should have waited for the response, it said. To this, the lawyer submitted that since there was no response to her request, the student made a representation to NHL Medical College and the NMC.

The bench issued a notice to NHL Medical college, asked the petitioner's advocate to serve a copy of the petition to the college's lawyer and posted further hearing on Monday.