Diplomate of National Board (DNB) is a postgraduate awarded by the National Board of Examinations (NBE), an autonomous academic body equivalent to the Medical Council of India (MCI) under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India to graduate doctors. with a prime motive of conducting postgraduate and post-doctoral courses of high standards and maintaining uniformity in a variety of medical subjects and allied sciences on an All- India basis. This course gained focus due to the unregulated expansion of private medical schools of questionable quality. This rapid growth of the private colleges with the deemed university status granted by the Human Resource Ministry led to a loosening of control of MCI over the maintenance of merit and quality in these institutions.
Initiation of DNB courses in District Hospitals of each state in India could potentially convert the in-house MBBS Doctors to specialists and this will add 2-3 extra specialists in each department. The challenge of retaining the specialist doctors will also be addressed as they will not only get the benefit of a Post Graduate/Post-Doctoral certification but also other attendant advantages like career growth prospects. Long-term reduction of the specialist gap can be achieved if the DNB board concedes to select region-specific Medical graduates functioning in the Government setup.
