Doctors’ body flags persistent faculty vacancies in Telangana Govt Medical Colleges to DME

Telangana doctors demand urgent action to address persistent faculty vacancies in government medical colleges, highlighting critical staffing shortages.

The Telangana Senior Resident Doctors Association (T-SRDA) has renewed its demand for urgent measures to address the acute shortage of teaching faculty in Government Medical Colleges (GMC) across the State.

In a representation submitted to Director of Medical Education (DME), A. Narendra Kumar, on Wednesday, the Association highlighted findings from a statewide faculty survey that pointed to a critical and persistent shortage of teaching staff, particularly in peripheral and newly established medical colleges.

According to the Association, several departments across colleges are functioning without professors and associate professors, resulting in the absence of academic leadership. In many cases, departments are being run by a single assistant professor or are heavily dependent on bonded or contractual senior residents.

T-SRDA stated that irregular and ad hoc recruitment practices have led to chronic vacancies, academic instability and an over-reliance on temporary staffing arrangements. It has sought the implementation of a fixed annual faculty recruitment job calendar to ensure a structured and time-bound mechanism for filling posts.

In a statement, T-SRDA said that Dr. Narendra Kumar received the inputs from the Association’s delegation and assured that necessary steps would be taken to fill vacant faculty posts. He stated that although the expansion of medical colleges had temporarily resulted in faculty shortages, the government remained committed to strengthening healthcare services.

“The DME has assured that the government would take steps to fill all vacancies in medical colleges through the job calendar and would also consider providing special incentives for faculty working in peripheral institutions,” it said.