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 - a 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 an Indian medical colleges. The Indian government evacuated around 20,000 medical students.
Those, who were in their final year, estimated to be around 3,000, were the worst affected. They couldn’t return to Ukraine to complete their course, which included clinical training, a must-have to take the FMG degree.
The students and their parents held several protests and also reached the Supreme Court for redressal, asking for admission into Indian medical colleges.
The Supreme Court on April 29 directed the regulatory body to frame a scheme in two months to enable MBBS students affected by the Russia-Ukraine war and the pandemic to complete their clinical training in medical colleges here as a one-time measure.
According to Dr Rohan Krishnan, President of FAIMA Doctors Association, now students are exempted from clearing final year exams and a series of other formalities, including internship there. It is a fast-track gate to becoming a registered practitioner in India.
We have been demanding it for a long time. It will give more doctors to the nation. We also hope that the government plans employment opportunities for these doctors by increasing seats of Medical Officers, Specialists and teachers in government institutes and hospitals, he told this newspaper.