Ukraine crisis: Despite NMC nod, internships at Indian colleges unlikely to help evacuated students
NEW DELHI: The National Medical Commission (NMC) may have allowed graduates from foreign medical colleges, who have not finished internships, to complete it in India, but most of those evacuated from Ukraine will not benefit as they are yet to finish their undergraduate MBBS courses.
Only a small number of foreign medical graduates will benefit, provided they can clear the challenging Foreign Medical Graduates Examination (FMGE), experts said.
According to Dr Rohan Krishnan, national president of Federation of All India Medical Association, “The NMC announcement is like waving a lollipop in front of them. It will not help the undergraduate medical students evacuated from Ukraine.”
As an internship in Ukraine was not even valid in India, the NMC announcement will help those students who had taken their final exams and were undergoing their training in the eastern European country but could not complete it due to the war, he said.
“It would have been better if the government had issued an advisory for the students in Ukraine and Russia and other eastern European countries to continue online classes and complete their MMBS course, even if it takes them longer. The NMC rule clearly says that one can complete their course in 10 years,” he said.
Dr Rajeev Ranjan Prasad, a former member of the Medical Council of India, said, “It is just posturing by NMC. It is only for final year students and won’t help the majority of these evacuees. Moreover, cracking FMGE is not easy.”
According to Dr. G S Grewal, president of Delhi Medical Association, “I am nost able to understand why this panic? We should have waited for two months. Do we want to induct them into medical colleges and then create a problem? It would have been better to wait and watch. Government has to work out a policy. If the students want to stay back and study, then the government should come out with guidelines.”