NEW DELHI: In a significant relief, final year medical students, who returned to India due to Covid-19 and Ukraine war and got degrees from their institutes on or before June 30, 2022, will be allowed for Foreign Medical Graduate (FMG) exam, National Medical Commission (NMC) announced.
This means these students have been exempted from taking the final year exam - must-have criteria earlier to take FMG exam. After clearing the FMG exam, students were allowed a one-year internship.
Apart from those who returned from Ukraine, the move will also help students who returned from China due to COVID-19.
According to the public notice issued by NMC, upon qualifying for the FMG exam, they will be required to undergo a Compulsory Rotating Medical Internship (CRMI) for two years instead of the current one year.
The foreign medical graduates will be eligible to get registration only after completing the two-year CRMI; adding the relaxation granted to the foreign medical students is a “one-time measure” and shall not be treated as “precedence in the future”.
“In pursuance to the order passed by the Supreme Court on April 29, it is informed that the Indian students who were in the last year of their undergraduate medicine course (had to leave their foreign medical institute and return to India due to COVID-19, Russia -Ukraine war etc.) and have subsequently completed their studies as also have been granted a certificate of completion of the course by their respective institute, on or before June 30, 2022, shall be permitted to appear in FMG exam,” the notice said.
“After that, upon qualifying for the FMG examination, such foreign medical graduates are required to undergo Compulsory Rotating Medical Internship (CRMI) for two years to make up for the clinical training which could not be physically attended by them during the undergraduate medicine course in the foreign institute as also to familiarise them with the practice of medicine under Indian conditions,” the notice said.
As thousands of students from India studying in various medical colleges across Ukraine had to abandon their courses and return home after Russian forces launched an offensive against Ukraine, their fate was uncertain.
However, NMC and the centre had asserted that they couldn’t be accommodated in Indian medical colleges. The Indian government evacuated around 20,000 medical students.
Foreign Medical Graduate examination for returnees
Final year medical students, who returned to India due to COVID-19 and Ukraine war and got degrees from their institutes on or before June 30, 2022, will be allowed for Foreign Medical Graduate (FMG) exam, the National Medical Commission (NMC) announced