AIIMS topper wants to serve home town, become a cardiologist

Eliza Bansal (17) from Punjab's Sangrur district, who topped the prestigious AIIMS MBBS exam this year, wants to serve her hometown Lehragaga which faces a shortage of doctors, her family said today. Bansal bagged the All India Rank (AIR) 1 in the AIIMS MBBS exam, the results for which were declared yesterday. "Eliza wants to be a cardiologist and serve in Lehragaga", said Vijay Kumar, the teen's proud father.

Our area is considered backward as there are no qualified doctors here, he added. Kumar, who is an economics teacher at a government school in Sangrur, said his daughter spent seven to eight hours studying every day. "Eliza stayed away from social media and used her mobile only for study purposes," he said.

The AIIMS results were a huge leap for Bansal who had secured the 196th position in this year's National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET). She scored a perfect 100 percentile in biology and physics, 99.94 percentile in chemistry and 97.87 percentile in general knowledge in the AIIMS test.

Two other students from Punjab were among the top four. Bathinda's Ramneek Kaur Mahal and Mohali's Manraj Singh Sra bagged AIR 2 and AIR 4 respectively. Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh congratulated the three students on Twitter today. "My heartiest congratulations to Sangrur girl Eliza for topping #AIIMSMBBSResult2018, and to the Ramneek & Manraj for taking the 2nd & 4th spot. You've all done Punjab proud. Best wishes for the future & hope to see you become great doctors in the service of mankind," the chief minister tweeted.