Doctors who scored zero can now study PG medical courses

All candidates who appeared for NEET PG-2023 are eligible to apply for post-graduate medical and dental seats across the country even if they scored a zero or got negative marks, the medical counselling committee under the Union health ministry.The previous cut-off was 291 marks for the general category and 257 marks for the reserved category.

As many as 13 candidates who scored such minus marks got admission. It seems that those who scored 20 to 30 marks get admission in some prestigious universities in Maharashtra.This year, the third round admission list was announced recently after the zero percentile criteria was set by the Union Health Ministry. The students who got only five marks in the third round have got admission in the colleges of Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Haryana. Most of the students got admission through management quota. However, in National Quota, Quota for Non-Resident Indian Students, those who score low are also eligible. Students who scored 11 marks in Non-Resident Indian Quota and students who scored around 57 marks in National Quota got admission. Subjects less directly related to the treatment of actual patients such as anatomy, biochemistry, forensics, microbiology, preventive and social medicine, pharmacology, physiology remain more vacant. After relaxing the eligibility criteria, it was expected that students with lower marks would get admission for these subjects. But this year, students who have scored 50-60 marks have also been admitted to courses like gynaecology and anesthesiology. Post Graduate Medical Entrance Test (NEET PG) is of 800 marks. A correct answer gets 4 marks, a wrong answer gets 1 mark and a no answer gets zero marks. Result is declared according to percentile. That is, the marks of the highest scoring students are ranked accordingly, assuming the 99.99 percentile. This year, due to the implementation of the zero percentile criteria, doctors who have scored less than 800 marks are also eligible. 14 candidates with zero marks have applied for admission.