MBBS Course to be Offered by IIT Kharagpur Soon

IIT Kharagpur, the premiere institution for engineering, has decided to go further and add MBBS courses to their curriculum as well. There would be a 400-beded super specialty hospital named Dr. BC Roy Institute of Medical Science & Research, which is scheduled to come up at a sprawling 3 acre land on the edge of the campus by the end of year 2017.

According to IIT Kharagpur Director, Partha Pratim Chakrabarti, “The government has already sanctioned a grant of Rs 230 crore last year for this purpose. Construction work will start soon and is expected to be completed within 26 months.” Approval from the Medical Council of India (MCI) for conducting undergraduate medical education courses like MBBS has been taken up by the IIT Kharagpur authorities and it would soon begin the procedure.

The premiere engineering institute IIT Kharagpur would be the first IIT to venture into the medical education and is expected to be followed by other IITs around the nation. The hospital soon to come up, would not only serve the local people but would be used for biomedical, clinical and translational research. The hospital is expected to get more beds and upgraded to 750 beds in its next phase, so that it could grow bigger and better. The hospital would also contribute on research areas like Drug design and delivery. The hospital is expected to use state of the art technologies such as remote diagnostics, telemedicine, teleradiology and expert systems to name a few. Apart from these there would paramedic, nursing training facilities, biomedical innovation unit and a medical outreach unit which are planned as off yet.

Authorities have also planned to have collaborations with universities in abroad such as, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA and Imperial College, London for medical sciences. IIT Kharagpur has been running the school of medical science and technology, which is an inter-disciplinary three year post-graduate programme in medical science and technology since 2001.

Important Points

• IIT Kharagpur has decided to add MBBS courses to their curriculum
• There would be a 400-beded super specialty hospital named Dr. BC Roy Institute of Medical Science & Research
• The government has already sanctioned a grant of Rs 230 crore last year for this purpose