New Delhi: The National Medical Commission (NMC) has proposed that final-year medical students from China and Ukraine who were not able to complete their practical training due to the pandemic or the war be allowed to sit for the Foreign Medical Graduate Exam (FMGE) – a screening test which foreign medical students have to clear to practice in the country.
The students who pass the examination will then have to complete a two-year internship to be eligible for permanent registration to practice medicine in the country. This will be a one-time relaxation granted due to unforeseen circumstances, the country’s apex medical education regulator proposed.
“The relaxation will be applicable only for a year, so students should refrain from taking admission to courses in these countries this year even though China is now allowing very few students to return. Some of the students from China were given an internship completion certificate online, how can that be accepted. The two-year internship will help in plugging the gaps in clinical training,” The Indian Express quoted an official as saying.
The proposal was submitted by the undergraduate medical board of the NMC on orders of the Supreme Court. The proposal states that the first and second-year medical students, who joined their college after November 2021, can appear again for NEET to seek admission to Indian colleges. These students, unlike the third and fourth-year students, cannot take a transfer to universities in other European countries.
The new guidelines for foreign medical graduates that came into force in November 2021 state that the students have to complete their entire training and internship from the same university.
Around 18,000 medical students returned from Ukraine after the war started in February. There are almost 65,000 students in India, from China, Ukraine and the Philippines. Their education was halted because of the new norms, the report added.
