IIT Kharagpur planning to offer MBBS course too

New Delhi: IIT Kharagpur (IIT KGP) has already carved a niche for its engineering courses. Now, it is gearing up to be the first IIT to offer medical education too. In a surprising move, IIT KGP has sought approval from the Medical Council of India (MCI) to offer undergraduate medical courses like MBBS degree programs.

Construction of a super -speciality hospital called Dr B C Roy Institute of Medical Science & Research is going to start soon on the 3-acre plot at the edge of the campus. The hospital will have 400 beds and is expected to be ready by 2017. Modi government already sanctioned a grant of Rs 230 crore for it in the last year budget session.

Right now, the B C Roy Technology Hospital in IIT campus has only 32 beds and offers treatment only to IIT students, faculty and staff. It has an ICU and an isolation ward too. The new hospital will, however, treatment to local people and search as a research institute as well – focusing on areas like biomedical, clinical and translational research as well as drug design and delivery.

IIT Kgp Drector Partha Pratim Chakrabarti shared, “The vision is to offer integration of the two disciplines of medicine and engineering in education and research. We will use technology to treat large number of patients through satellite centres and secondary hospitals. We will leverage outreach of cellular network and use technologies like remote diagnostics, telemedicine, teleradiology, and expert systems.”

Since 2001, IIT KGP is running the School of Medical Science & Technology which offers 3-year inter-disciplinary postgraduate programme. IIT Kharagpur is collaborating with the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA and Imperial College, London on medical science which will add international appeal to the degree courses it may offer. It has also proposed to open up paramedic and nursing training facilities, a medical outreach unit and biomedical innovation unit. In the next phase, the hospital would upgraded to 750 beds.