District Residency Programme: Three Months You Cannot Skip

Three months in a district hospital, and why

Three months, and it is compulsory

The National Medical Commission's postgraduate regulations of 2023 make every MD and MS student in a broad speciality do three residential months in a district hospital.

It falls in your second or third year

The rotation takes place in the third, fourth or fifth semester. Students who joined after a diploma, and diploma students themselves, do it in the third semester only.

A district hospital means fifty beds

Here a district hospital is a government funded hospital of at least fifty beds with staff for the speciality. A PG institution or super speciality hospital does not count.

The state posts you, not your college

A state nodal officer identifies the hospitals and allots the places at least six months ahead. Your college must place you at the state government's disposal for it.

Your stipend keeps coming from home

You continue to draw your full stipend from your own college for the whole rotation, against the attendance the district reports back. The state must provide accommodation.

No certificate means no final exam

The district coordinator issues the completion certificate. Satisfactory completion of it is an essential condition before you may sit the final examination of your PG course.

Want the whole PG course mapped out?

Our guide to postgraduate specialisations after MBBS sets out the courses, the years each takes, what it asks of you and where it leads afterwards.