The Centre for Social and Economic Progress hosted a Seminar on Medical Education: Understanding Demand and Supply Dynamics on Friday, August 04, 2023, 10:00 am – 12:15 pm IST. The event was held in the hybrid mode. Attendees joined in-person at the Magnolia Hall, India Habitat Centre, Lodhi Road, New Delhi – 110003 and via Zoom. The seminar was streamed live on YouTube.

Read the CSEP Working Paper: Medical Education in India: A Study of Supply-Side Dynamics

About the event:

India has the highest number of medical colleges in the world, but the number of medical graduates per 100,000 is lower than most countries. There have been several policy interventions by the government, aimed at addressing constraints in medical education. The bulk of the seat capacity expansion at both the undergraduate and postgraduate levels over the last decade has been a result of the focus on increasing the number of medical colleges and medical seat capacity.  Yet, some of the crucial barriers of economics, shortage of both teaching faculty and non-teaching staff, stringent requirements for setting up and running medical colleges and a skewed distribution of medical seats have remained critical impediments. There is a need to rethink existing regulatory requirements pertaining to setting up and scaling up medical colleges, as well as addressing the core issue of the high financial opportunity cost of giving up full-time practice, which is a key variable in the teaching faculty shortage. 

The seminar explored the structural factors influencing the availability and distribution of medical colleges and seats, output from them in terms of doctors, and the balance between doctor production and supply within a state. It examined the current situation in the context of policy initiatives and the progress that has been made in this regard, and offered insights to strengthening medical education in India. 

Chair:

Vinod Paul is a globally recognised medical scientist and a public health exponent. He is currently a member of the National Institution for Transforming India, NITI Aayog, where he leads the Health, Nutrition and Education verticals. He has played a pivotal role in formulating the Ayushman Bharat-PMJAY, the Ayushman Bharat Health and Wellness Centre Scheme and POSHAN Abhiyaan. He is a member of the core team of the Government of India for COVID-19 pandemic response and chairs the Empowered Group on Emergency Management Plan and Strategy, Empowered Group on Vaccination, the National Task Force on COVID-19 as well as the National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration for COVID-19 (NEGVAC). He previously served on the faculty of the Department of Paediatrics, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, from 1985 to 2020, and was Head of the Department for nearly a decade. He also served as the Chairman of the Board of Governors in supersession of the Medical Council of India in 2018-20.

Opening Remarks

Laveesh Bhandari is President and a Senior Fellow at CSEP. He has been leading climate change and sustainability research at CSEP, and has published widely on subjects related to sustainable livelihoods, industrial, economic and social reforms in India, economic geography and financial inclusion. He has taught economics at Boston University and IIT Delhi. He has been the managing editor of the Journal of Emerging Market Finance and worked at the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER), New Delhi.

Panelists

Randeep Guleria is an Indian pulmonologist and the former Director of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi. He is currently chairman of the Institute of Medicine Respiratory and Sleep Medicine, and Director of Medanta Medical School. He is a recipient of numerous awards including the prestigious Padma Shri, awarded by the Government of India in 2015 and the  Dr B C Roy national award for Eminent Medical Person. He has been on multiple high-level committees, focused on policy as well as medical issues, and has a very large body of published research work. 

Alok Kumar is a senior civil servant currently working with the Government of UP as Principal Secretary (Health & Medical Education). He has a Master’s degree in Public Policy (with specialisation in Health) from Princeton University in addition to a B Tech in Electrical Engineering from IIT Delhi. He has over 30 years of experience working in the health sector right from District, Provincial and Federal Governments, including working in the offices of the Chief Minister; as well as in NITI Aayog – the premier think tank of the Government of India chaired by the Prime Minister. He also has worked as a faculty member of the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration – the apex training institution for senior civil servants. He is a thought leader in shaping the policies relating to the design of the Health System in India and brings a unique combination of experiences – policy making, execution as well as an academic perspective on the health sector in his country.

Sanjay Zodpey is the President of the Public Health Foundation of India and has served as Vice President – Academics, Public Health Foundation of India and led the Indian Institute of Public Health, Delhi as its Founding Director. An institution builder, he played an important role in setting up Indian Institutes of Public Health across India. He has served as Director of Indian Institutes of Public Health at Gandhinagar and Bhubaneswar. He has also served as Professor at the Department of Preventive and Social Medicine, Faculty in Clinical Epidemiology Unit and Vice Dean at Government Medical College, Nagpur, India. 

Presenters:

Amrita Agarwal has had a diverse experience across the private sector and policy space. She was with Bain India working across health, tech services, financial services, infrastructure and private equity. Post Bain, Amrita led the health system design at Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, helping establish and scale up a portfolio of investments on structural reforms in the healthcare sector of India working closely with national, state governments, international institutions and the private sector. Currently, she is working in a diversified Indian conglomerate. 

Khushboo Balani is a Research Associate and a PhD (Public Policy) Candidate with the Ashank Desai Centre for Policy Studies, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. Her thesis focuses on healthcare financing in India, with a special focus on the Empowered Action Group States. She has previously worked with the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy and Outlook Business. Her areas of interest include health economics, public health, human development and development economics.

Moderator

Sandhya Venkateswaran is a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP) and leads the Human Development work at CSEP, with a specific focus on Health Policy. In a career spanning over three decades, she has worked on a wide range of issues in the social sector across health, nutrition, gender, natural resources, urban development and others, and has authored books, multiple articles and other publications on varied social sector issues. Over the last 15 years, her focus has been on policy issues, developing and leading the policy and advocacy portfolio in organisations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition and CARE. She has worked with grassroots campaigns and civil society organisations, as well as with government and international organisations. She is currently a member of the Lancet Citizens’ Commission on Reimagining India’s Health System.

Please contact Khushboo Balani at KBalani@csep.org for event-related inquiries or Trishna Wahengbam at TWahengbam@csep.org for media inquiries.

All content reflects the individual views of the speakers. The Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP) does not hold an institutional view on any subject.