Chennai: State health department plans to restructure the Directorate of Medical Education (DME) by creating four regional DMEs, citing the rise in govt medical colleges.
DME was established in July 1966 by bifurcating the medical education wing from the Directorate of Medical Services (DMS). This allowed the state to form a specialised administrative body to manage teaching hospitals and the higher medical curriculum.
“It was done when they realised that supervising both rural healthcare delivery and the complex logistics of tertiary medical institutions was too overwhelming for one department,” said a senior official.
“With a policy to start one medical college in every district, we have 36 medical colleges now. It is difficult for one person to manage them centrally from Chennai,” he said. The orders for these structural changes will be ready in a couple of days, he said.
The state will create four regional heads, who will report to the director of medical education. They will independently manage undergraduate, postgraduate, super-specialty medical and dental programmes, and allied health programmes, besides overseeing patient care, infrastructure and human resource availability in hospitals.
TN Govt Doctors Association said govt cannot issue orders without consulting doctors’ groups. Service Doctors and Postgraduates Association said the department was needlessly complicating a simple process. “They must choose a DME from a seniority panel that was created before March 15, 2026. There were four names on the list. The department has added more deans to the seniority list and called them for an interview,” said association general secretary A Ramalingam.
