Get ready to meet IITian Doctors – IIT Kharagpur to soon have a Medical School
The prestigious IIT-K, which was the first IIT to be established in the country, will soon be producing doctors.
After a decade long debate and wait, the institution has been granted permission to set up a super specialty hospital on its campus. The hospital will be open to public and is expected to be operational by the end of 2017.The Center has sanctioned Rs.230 crore for the first phase of the project, which will add 450 beds to the super specialty hospital over a three-acre plot on the border of the campus. This will be expanded to 750 beds gradually.
The medical school, which is named Dr BC Roy Institute of Medical Science and Research – after the state’s revered physician and second Chief Minister, will award MBBS, MD, MS and DM degrees. However, the prime focus will be on research – especially in biomedical, clinical and translational areas. Other focus areas will include drug design and delivery and a biomedical innovation unit, according to sources.
AIIMS, New Delhi is expected to design the medical courses. L&T will build the hospital while healthcare consultancy PSU HSCC will build the infrastructure.
IIT-Kharagpur has been running a school of medical science and technology since 2001, which has an inter-disciplinary three-year post-graduate programme in medical science and technology.
“We will bring together the two diverse disciplines of engineering and medicine in education and research,” said IIT-K’s director Partha Pratim Chakrabarti. “Technology will be used to access and treat a large number of patients through satellite centers and secondary hospitals.”
For the new venture, the authorities are collaborating with Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA and Imperial College, London on medical science.
