Dress Code imposed by UP Medical colleges on MBBS Students

UP: In an effort to straight jacket the MBBS students, two medical colleges in Uttar Pradesh recently laid strictures on its student community for wearing jeans and T-shirts to college and growing stylish beards. The latter imposition has been laid by the state-run Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi Memorial (GSVM Medical college) in Kanpur.

However, Sikh and Muslim students have been exempted from the stylish beard and long hair restriction on religious grounds.

Authorities in both these colleges complained of growing indiscipline due to the wearing of informal dresses and keeping of stylish beards by students.

"We have students coming from abroad for medical studies. It was found that indiscipline was growing the college campus for the past few years due to informal dressing. After discussion, the management has decided to enforce the new dress code," a senior faculty member told DNA.

The new rules call for formals and a complete ban on fashion beards. The message being sent down to students is a 'shaven, groomed, formal look' to college by the college administration. All unkempt casual appearances are banned henceforth, and any student promoting this look will be disallowed on campus. "We have, however, relaxed the rule for those medical students who keep a beard and long hair on religious grounds," said the college management.

"The new dress code is as per the guidelines issued by the Medical Council of India (MCI). We are only enforcing it and there is nothing controversial about it," Dr. Ajay Sharma, Media in-charge of the college told DNA.

Meanwhile, to ease batch identification, lab coats of different kinds will be worn by 1-5 year students. It has been made mandatory for first-year students to wear long lab coats with badges of their names. While the second, third, fourth and final year MBBS students will wear separate lab coats.

While most students have accepted the authority diktat quietly, some opposing voices citing practical reasons have been heard. "We spent the whole day in the college and night in a library for studies. It is not practically possible for us to shave daily and wear formals amid such hectic study schedule," rued one of them.