India’s elite engineering institutes are setting their sights on medical education, arguing that technological understanding is essential for the next generation of doctors.
The Indian Institute of Technology Madras has announced plans to establish a School of Medical Sciences and offer undergraduate and postgraduate medical degrees.
Veezhinathan Kamakoti, the director of IIT Madras, said that interdisciplinary education is required to solve healthcare challenges, citing the example of Covid-19, when Indian hospitals depended on medical devices and technologies imported from abroad.
Other IITs – which are synonymous with engineering education in India – are predicted to follow suit. Indeed, some are already involved in medicine-related work.
The Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur built a School of Medical Sciences and Technology in 2001. This year, it applied to the National Medical Commission to start teaching postgraduate medical courses. If approved, it would be the first IIT to offer postgraduate medicine.
