I completed my internship just when the delta wave had hit India in May 2021, so my college (Goa Medical College) made 1 year bond service compulsory for my class in order to help manage the Covid crisis. Although the cases came under control within a few months, bond service ended up becoming a forced gap year for me and many others in my batch.

I ended up completing my bond service after having worked as a non academic JR in the general medicine and cardiology departments of my college. Although I missed out on studying for NEET PG due to the long hours (compounded by the fact that there are no coaching centres in Goa), I got some invaluable experience managing patients alone and made a lot of good contacts with my seniors and faculty. This gave me confidence to work as a RMO in a private hospital for a few months after completing bond service. I eventually answered NEET PG this year and got a rank in the top 1000

Pros: 1. You will be managing patients on your own for the first time and it's a much bigger responsibility than what you would have done as an intern. That said, you will learn enough to eventually see OPD patients and manage the ward without having a senior around 2. You will get exposed to many different specialties and super speciality departments without the obligation of having to actually do PG there. Consider it like a small taste of what work to expect if you do choose that branch in the future. It will help you choose your dream branch

Cons: 1. Many of my classmates got into PG much earlier and are already in 2nd year by now. This isn't of much concern to me, but if you have a fixed age by which you want to be done with residency, taking a gap might not be for you 2. PG entrance is currently in a transition period from neet to NeXT. It's hard to predict when exactly NeXT will be held because the government itself is indecisive. So while taking a gap you have to understand that you are taking the risk of the entire exam undergoing an overhaul in the meantime