As recently as the 1980s, no university in the entire country could be designated as an exclusive university for medical colleges due to the fact that all medical colleges, and all the courses related to it, were fed into the local universities.
Recall that, while there were dedicated universities for streams like engineering education, that could not be said of medical science education.
It is said that only towards the 1980s did people begin appreciating the necessity to establish a separate university for all medical colleges. “Then, there were eight government medical colleges and one private medical college in the erstwhile undivided State of Andhra Pradesh. The medical colleges were all appended to different universities, Andhra University, Sri Venkateswara University, Osmania and Kakatiya university,” said Radhika Reddy, Registrar, Dr. NTR University of Health Sciences popularly known as Dr. NTRUHS.
She recounted how such discrepancies in terms of exam dates, exam patterns, exam syllabus prevailed in different colleges. “People had to go through a long list of procedures to get anything done because the medical college was usually located in a distant place from the university to which it was posted. Many of the medical practitioners also operate under very different conventions, depending on most of which, are upon approval on the international or central level, a different way of practice, and practical and training classes,” she said.
In the year 1992, When Andhra Pradesh was a merged state, N.T. Rama Rao the then Chief Minister envisioned the establishment of a university for better advancement and enhancement of medical education as well as for encompassing all the medical courses within its confines with a view of providing quality education, research and training of any kind.
When this led to the creation of the country’s first medical sciences university, the Andhra Pradesh University of Health Sciences by the Vijayawada State through Act No. 6 in 1986. The central committee comprising persons who are or have been the chair persons of professional colleges or who are heads of medical divisions in hospitals recalls this decision such as N T Rama Rao made while in office that was a pioneering one that called for several other States to follow suit.
D. Jayadheer of the first batch of UHS students said, the establishment of UHS was a turning point in the history of both students and health professionals.
When the university came into existence, all the nine government medical colleges existing in the State were included under it’s ambit. N T Rama Rao became its first Chancellor and the first Vice-Chancellor was K N Rao a medical scientist.
Since then, on an annual basis, graduates of different courses have been coming out victorious at the end of the graduates.
Beginning with 900 students in the year 1988, till today the university has recorded more than three lakh students who graduated from different colleges under it. From nine medical colleges in 1986, the university now has over 466 colleges affiliated to it as one Dr, Radhika Reddy states.
When the institution was first established, the government chose to create its headquarters in Vijayawada rather than Hyderabad. According to sources, one of the motives was to disperse the concentration of expansion. By this time, Hyderabad had already developed into a significant educational centre.
However, even today the university does not possess any land in its own name. The site proposed at the time was adjacent to Siddhartha Medical College which was owned by Siddhartha Academy.
“Though it was the first private medical college in the State, we could not manage its operation due to shortage of funds. N. T. Rama Rao took up the issue with Mummaneni Subba Rao, who was at that time Academy Secretary requesting him to explore possibilities for converting the said SMC and the building into a University. Along with him, Subba Rao also endorsed the Chief Minister’s wish,” in Lalitha Prasad N. Alpesha, Joint Secretary limpid Kerala Academy Kalasa Shiksha Samiti explains.
“Though we took a decision that we would allow to escape from the only medical college that we had. We had our reasons to regret such decision. But as we expressed an intention to establish another medical college in the year 2003, which was Pinnamaneni Siddhartha Medical College. The State government gave us permissions right away,” he adds. They have now approached the officials to shift the area of the educational institutions to any other place. Since the current site has become congested with all the operations, which reportedly have the backing of the officials.
At the same time, the university was not without scandals. The name of the university was changed five times since its inception. When it was inaugurated, it was called as University of Health Sciences, A.P. Years later, in 1998, it was made NTRUHS. In 2006, the adjective doctor was added to it. The most controversial name change occurred in 2022, when it was renamed by the YSRCP government as Dr. YSRUHS.
As soon as the TDP led NDA government came to power in the year 2024 after a fierce struggle, it quickly redeemed one of its critical election pledges and had issued a notification on its pursue to revert the change of name of the institution back to its former name of Dr. NTRUHS, an homage paid to N. T. Rama Rao for his efforts in the sphere of medical academics.
