Nearly a year ago, Sugirtha Selvakumar, a 27-year-old anaesthesia postgraduate, died by suicide by injecting herself with a muscle relaxant in Tamil Nadu. In her suicide note, she mentioned having to work 20 hours a day under immense psychological pressure from seniors. Her death sparked outrage and dialogue, but the furor eventually died down without any fruitful action.
A Right To Information filed in 2024 showed that in the past five years, almost 58 postgraduate medical students have ended their lives. An online survey done the National Medical Council reveals that almost 37,000 medical students have self-reported mental ailments with suicidal risk. How many students filled this form is unknown and therefore to tell what percentage of students reported poor mental health is not possible.
As an insider in the medical education system who has witnessed how it functions, I have reason to believe that these staggering numbers are just the tip of the iceberg. A high-stakes trap A postgraduate seat, in essence, can be likened to a toxic relationship – in that, leaving could be just as dangerous as staying. Acquiring a postgraduate seat gate kept by a single three-hour exam is uniformly nerve-wracking.
The over-glorification of postgraduate medical education in Indian society leads to a situation where a student, once admitted to a medical college for their postgraduate degree, finds it hard to leave. This situation is worsened considerably by the excessive seat-leaving fees l.