INDIA TODAYS TOP MEDICAL COLLEGES INDIA

COVER STORY: INDIA TODAY-AC NIELSEN-ORG-MARG SURVEY OF COLLEGES MedicineAIIMS retains its top position, while Lady Hardinge powers its way into the Top 10.By Shruti Maheshwari FOCUSED: Students at AIIMS learn better as it attracts special cases With a whopping 75,000 applications for just 45 MBBS seats, the probability of getting into the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) barely beats zero. For somebody like final-year student Ashish Kataria, who is now posted as an intern and will soon become a full-fledged physician, getting into AIIMS meant not just fulfilment of all his days of hard work, but another half decade of the same. But then, no one is complaining. As a consecutive topper for four years in the survey, AIIMS has practically beaten all competition. Up from sixth position last year is the Christian Medical College (CMC), Vellore, which has taken the No. 2 slot from the Armed Forces Medical College (AFMC), Pune, which in turn is down to third place this year.AIIMS director Dr P. Venugopal believes that the institute's "trinity of mission-education, research and patient-care-coupled with selfless and dedicated service" has made it what it is today. Its unique brand of autonomy enables it to design its own curriculum, a privilege that no other medical college in the country enjoys. Add to it a faculty of 500 teachers and you know why AIIMS produces some of the finest doctors in the country..TOP 101 AIIMS, Delhi 2 CMC, Vellore 3 AFMC, Pune 4 JIPMER, Pondicherry 5 Lady Hardinge, Delhi 6 Kasturba Med. College, Chennai 7 Maulana Azad, Delhi 8 Grant Medical College, Mumbai 9 St. John's, Bangalore 10 BMC, Bangalore National ranks are a combination of perceptual and factual ranks. Colleges that did not provide factual information for the survey were not ranked. ( - ) Not ranked in the 2005 top 10 for details visit:http://groups.yahoo.com/group/foetron/message/229