Imagine being a professor who's spent 15 years building a research lab…
and then a rule tells you to hand over the keys every 3 years.
That was the plan.
The National Medical Commission (NMC) wanted every Head of Department in India's medical colleges to rotate out after a fixed 3-year term.
Seniority would decide who's next.
Then India's medical fraternity said one thing, loudly:
Nope.
NMC ran a nationwide consultation on amendments to the PGMER-2023 rules.
The feedback was brutal.
And just like that, the NMC is now likely to walk it back.
Critics weren't defending egos.
They were defending continuity.
Research projects don't fit neatly into 3-year boxes.
PhD cohorts don't either.
Neither do accreditation cycles or long collaborations.
Then came the awkward bit:
👉 Under strict rotation, a junior associate professor could end up leading a department full of seniors.
Cue: workplace tension, politics, hierarchy chaos.
Institutions also flagged something deeper — autonomy.
A centrally mandated timer felt like Delhi reaching into every department in the country.
Dr Amrinder Singh Malhi, who heads the faculty association at AIIMS Delhi, called the rollback a missed chance.
His argument is sharp:
"The objective is not to weaken leadership, but to democratise opportunity."
In his view, the loudest objections come from "traditionally entrenched" senior groups uncomfortable with transitions — while younger faculty want rotation, accountability, and less concentration of power.
Classic old guard vs. new guard.
Here's the quiet truth shaping this whole debate.
India's most elite medical institutions — AIIMS and PGI Chandigarh — don't rotate HoDs.
They never have.
As senior dermatologist Dr Kabir Sardana of RML Hospital put it, earlier rotation orders triggered "litigations across the country."
Rotation works at IITs.
Medical colleges, he argues, are a different animal — clinical care, surgeries, long-haul research, hospital admin.
The Post Graduate Medical Education Board has landed on a softer fix:
No fixed timer. No forced exits. Just accountability.
Performance over stopwatch.
It's a small policy U-turn.
But for India's 800+ medical colleges, it decides who runs the room — and for how long.
That's all for now!
