IIT-Ropar, PGIMER collaborate to offer MD and PhD dual degree

Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) and Indian Institution of Technology (IIT) Ropar are working on a PhD and MD dual degree programme. The programme could be pursued by the students of both the institutes. According to the director of IIT Ropar, Sarit Kumar Das, a student who finishes his or her MBBS would be able to complete MD from PGI and PhD from IIT Ropar. The student would be able to pursue both the degree at the same time.

He further added that a student is required to do a thesis and conduct research. Similarly, to finish an MD degree, you need to do a one-year long thesis. Here, the students would not require to do an extra MD thesis, but they would conduct a combined research thesis within the PhD programme. He explained that the four elementary courses requisite for a PhD would also be done away with in the unified course as the students would be able to pursue those courses in the MD degree. So, in five years, the students would be able to complete a dual degree that he or she would else take a minimum of seven years to complete.