Delhi, Jan 18: AIIMS Patna is all set to conduct the practical exam of the second professional MBBS examination batch of 2019 from Monday.
AIIMS Patna has decided to conduct the practical exams even after the state-run institutions have postponed the medical examinations due to the surge in Covid-19 cases.
A total of eight examinees have not yet responded to a questionnaire shared by AIIMS on their health status, while the remaining 74 examinees reported themselves to be healthy.
Around 800 AIIMS Patna employees have so far tested positive for Covid-19 this year.
An official from AIIMS Patna said that the institute had sent out a questionnaire to the examinees seeking their response by Sunday if they were symptomatic but had not tested positive or were either healthy or recovered from Covid-19.
These examinees will be segregated based on their response, before the four-day exam commences from Monday, the official said.
Dr Saurabh Varshney, Executive Director, AIIMS-Deoghar, who holds the charge of director, AIIMS Patna, said that the institute has planned to conduct the MBBS exam as per the schedule following all the Covid-19 protocols.
The institute doesn't want to derail its academic session which has been affected for the last two years. Thus, the institute is trying to get its students back into the mainstream of academics, Varshney said.
Further, the institute has planned to divide the examinees into two broad categories, with one group of examinees showing symptoms of Covid-19 and the other group consisting of the healthy examinees.
The examination will be conducted in separate halls, dividing the examinees into smaller groups, with sufficient distancing between them. The same kind of arrangement will be followed at AIIMS Deoghar, added Dr Varshney.
Dr Umesh Kumar Bhadani, dean (Academics), AIIMS Patna, said that departments like microbiology have planned to conduct the exams in two sessions – morning and afternoon, to segregate the healthy and infected examinees.
Further, the exam where the Covid-19 infected examinees will write their exams will be fumigated every day.
The institute's aim of not deferring the exams is to condition the medical aspirants so that they comprehend and accept the situation arising out of a pandemic and prepare themselves to serve the society as diligent doctors in the event of any medical adversity, added Dr Bhadani.
The theory examination of the 2019 batch of MBBS students at AIIMS was successfully conducted between January 4 and 14.
The practical examination of the same batch of pathology, microbiology, pharmacology and forensic medicine and toxicology disciplines is scheduled to commence from January 17 to 20.
The institute conducted its first professional MBBS examination last month and declared its results earlier this month.
Aryabhatta Knowledge University (AKU), which holds the responsibility of deciding the medical curriculum in state government-run medical colleges of Bihar, has, however, postponed all the exams.
The exams have been postponed for the 1st professional MBBS examination 2021 and the 1st professional Bachelor of Ayurveda Medicine and Surgery 2020 (II), which were scheduled to start from January 19, 2022.
On January 16, Bihar reported a total of 5,410 fresh Covid-19 cases, taking the total count of active cases to 35,508.
According to the health bulletin released by the state health department, Patna reported the highest of 1,575 cases, with a positivity rate of 17.40%, followed by Muzaffarpur 333 (6.05% positivity), Purnia 248 (5.35% positivity), Samastipur 349 (8.19% positivity), and Bhagalpur 189 (7.72% positivity) among others.
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