Students from Sri Ramachandra Institute for Higher Education and Research (SRIHER), pursuing an M.D., will now have an opportunity to do a Ph.D. from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT-M).
The two institutions signed a memorandum of agreement (MoU) on Thursday, November 16, 2023, at the IIT Madras premises, for the M.D.-Ph.D. dual degree that will be offered from the next academic year.
Under the agreement, students pursuing their M.D. currently may apply for the Ph.D. programme at IIT Madras. A panel of professors from the Department of Medical Sciences and Technology at IIT-M will select students from among those who have completed the first year in M.D. “The students must have qualified in the postgraduate (PG) NEET (National Eligibility cum Entrance Test). The selected students, who would be senior residents and pursue their clinical training, will be given a fellowship to complete their Ph.D.,” said Uma Sekar, Vice Chancellor of SRIHER. The students will be considered part-time Ph.D. students of IIT-M.
According to the institutions, the objective of the M.D.-Ph.D. dual degree programme is to produce trained research scientists who can help develop equipment indigenously, for the healthcare sector. It would also help in creating researchers who could concentrate on preventive healthcare.
The M.D.-Ph.D. graduates are known as physician-scientists, who can establish cause-and-effect relationships for diseases, Prof. Sekar explained.
IIT Madras director V. Kamakoti said when engineering and medicine go together, affordable, quality healthcare could become a reality. As many as 22 of the top 100 from among the 1.2 lakh students who took the Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research (IISER) test to qualify for the B.S. Medical Engineering course, had joined IIT Madras, he said.
The degree would not only enhance domain knowledge of the students, but also give them an engineering perspective and help them establish a foundation to enable them develop equipment required for medical treatment, he said.
IIT Madras launched its Department of Medical Sciences and Technology in May this year, and has enrolled 150 students each in the undergraduate and posgraduate programmes.
