RGUHS VC selection: Ball in Governor’s court

Kumaran P. | NT
Bengaluru, Nov. 10

While the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences is waiting for a full-time vice-chancellor, sources said that the file for selection is now with the Governor. But experts and academicians want the governor to reject the list as they feel the selection procedure was faulty.

It may be recalled that the state government had constituted a search committee with an engineering professional as a chairman and this had led to an uproar. “We have appealed to the state government to squash the selection committee as an engineer was named the chairman of the committee instead of a medical professional. We had appealed to the government, but there was no response,” said an academician.

In order to assess the suitability of any candidate to the post of V-C RGUHS, one needs to understand the contribution of every applicant in the field of health and medical education in terms of their research, administrative and domain achievements. 

Normally a medical professional of good reputation will be capable of assessing the same. However, the constitution of the Search Committee was not modified and the committee met on October 7, 2021 to finalise three names.

Sources said the committee had shortlisted two dental professionals and one medical professional. 
According to the information accessed by NT, the three names are: Dr Jayakara Shetty, in-charge V-C of RGUHS who is a dentist, Sabitha, another dentist from KIDWAI hospital and Dr MK Ramesh, from the National Medical Council who was a HOD of Surgery in Victoria hospital and two times in-charge V-C of RGUHS previously.

“The file has gone to the Governor and he will pick a name and send the same information to the government. Even the Medical Education minister is unhappy with these names. At any time the decision from the Governor will come out,” a source said.

A former vice-chancellor of RGUHS said the selection panel has favoured some candidates. “We are surprised that the senior-most dean in the government has not been included in the list,” he observed.