NMC provides some relief to foreign MBBS students

Hyderabad: In a relief to MBBS students from Telangana and other parts of the country who had to abandon their medical courses and leave foreign countries due to the Covid pandemic and Ukraine-Russia war, the National Medical Commission (NMC) on Friday has granted relaxation and allowing them to appear for Foreign Medical Graduate Examination (FMGE), […]

Hyderabad: In a relief to MBBS students from Telangana and other parts of the country who had to abandon their medical courses and leave foreign countries due to the Covid pandemic and Ukraine-Russia war, the National Medical Commission (NMC) on Friday has granted relaxation and allowing them to appear for Foreign Medical Graduate Examination (FMGE), the licensure examination that if cleared will allow such students to register in India and practice their profession.

On Friday, the NMC released a notice that said, “Indian students who were in the last year of their undergraduate medicine course and had to leave their foreign medical institutes and return to India due to Covid-19 and Russia-Ukrain war, and have subsequently completed their studies and also have been granted certificate of completion of course/ degree by their respective institutes on or before June 30, 2022, shall be permitted to appear in FMGE”.

---

The one-time relaxation is expected to offer relief to a large contingent of students from Telangana who came back from China and other European countries during Covid pandemic and from Ukraine after the Russian invasion of that country.

According to estimates, there were 28,000 Indian students, out of which nearly 7000 from the two-Telugu speaking states, pursuing MBBS in various Chinese universities, when Covid pandemic broke-out.

Due to the pandemic related restrictions, they had to come back to India and could not return because of Visa restrictions. As a result, many of them pursued their MBBS courses in online mode, which is not recognised by the NMC.

There are nearly 700 students from Telangana who were pursuing MBBS courses in Ukraine and had to come back because of the Russian war. A majority of them are expected to benefit from the NMC relaxation.

The NMC in its notice made it clear that once MBBS students from foreign universities clear the FMGE examination, they will, however, have to undergo Compulsory Rotating Medical Internship (CRMI) for two-years.

The mandatory two-year CRMI will enable MBBS students from foreign universities to make-up for the clinical training, which could not be physically attended by them during the undergraduate medicine course in foreign medical institutes.

The CMRI programme will also enable such students to familiarise with the practice of medicine in India conditions. The foreign medical graduates will be eligible to get registration only after completing the CMRI, NMC said.

The NMC has also made it clear that the relaxation granted to foreign medical students is a one-time measure and shall not be treated as precedence in the future.