• Teaching: Attracting and retaining quality faculty should be accorded top priority. Measures such as opportunities to attend international conferences regularly, sabbaticals, dual appointments, rewarding research, fast-track promotions, and dissociating remuneration from government pay scales should be explored. All institutions must clearly lay down exact definitions of what constitutes conflict of interest for faculty members in public medical colleges, who have a private practice in addition to their official duties, and receive a full time teacher’s salary. Those who flout these regulations should be penalized.
• Research: With a view to encouraging research in medicine, a Mentored Medical Student Research Program should be set up as a catalyst to introduce medical students to a potential career in patient-oriented/ community-oriented research including interdisciplinary research. Two points of entry into PhD programs should be considered: one after MBBS and another after MD depending on the student’s interest. The government should facilitate setting up of research centers in medical colleges. Validating Indian Systems of Medicine using biosciences tools should form an integral component of the research effort.
• Training: Five Regional Centers for teacher training/ faculty development should be set up so that teachers from the outlying regions can be sent to these centers periodically for up-gradation of their teaching skills.

• General Physicians: The medical profession needs to be structured like a pyramid with the base made up of general physicians. At present there is little if any space for such doctors in post graduate courses. Therefore, we suggest that adequate representation should be given to general physicians while carrying out expansion of post graduate seats such that fifty percent seats are reserved for general physicians. New streams for post graduation should be looked at based on needs.
• Admissions: Admission to post graduate courses should be done on the basis of credits received in the National Exit Examination and pre and post internship clinically oriented exams after internship. There is a need to reserve post graduate seats (upto 20% of total available seats) for graduates who have worked in rural areas for at least 3 years.

• Location priorities: The number of medical colleges in relation to population in some states is much higher than in other states. The Central Government should aid new colleges in these states to address this regional disparity. For instance, north eastern states require urgent attention in this context. The Central Government can develop a list of priority sites for establishing new colleges where the impact of new clinical facilities would benefit the surrounding rural population.
• Role models: Further at least one institution should be identified in each State that can serve as a center of excellence and role model for the other institutions of the state. These institutions should have state-of-the-art infrastructural equipment such as research laboratories, teacher training facilities, and libraries, as well a talented faculty of adequate strength to act as a common resource and also to serve as a benchmark of excellence.

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