Leaves 99% in limbo: Shashi Tharoor on NMC scheme for MBBS students who returned from Ukraine, China

NEW DELHI : MBBS students who returned to India due to Covid or Russia-Ukraine war and got degrees by June 30 will be allowed for Foreign Medical Graduate exam, Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya has informed Congress MP Shashi Tharoor. Posting on Twitter a copy of Mandaviya's letter to him, Tharoor claimed that "it leaves 99 per cent of them in limbo". Mandaviya's letter stated that upon qualifying the Foreign Medical Graduate (FMG) exam, they will be required to undergo a Compulsory Rotating Medical Internship (CRMI) for two years instead of the existing one year.

"Just received this letter from Health Minister Mansukh Mandviya responding to my raising the issue of the predicament in which Indian medical students evacuated from Ukraine find themselves. I'm afraid it leaves 99 per cent of them in limbo," Tharoor tweeted.

Just received this letter from Health Minister @mansukhmandviya responding to my raising the issue of the predicament in which Indian medical students evacuated from #Ukraine find themselves. I'm afraid it leaves 99% of them in limbo pic.twitter.com/BW1YlZYxRo

— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) August 31, 2022

Along with the tweet he posted the letter of the Union health minister. In the letter, Mandaviya said he had the matter examined in consultation with the National Medical Commission (NMC), the apex medical regulatory body in the country. Foreign Medical Students/Graduates are either covered under "Screening Test Regulations, 2002" or "Foreign Medical Graduate Licentiate Regulations, 2021". "There are no such provisions in the Indian Medical Council Act 1956 and the National Medical Commission Act, 2019 as well as the Regulations to accommodate or transfer medical students from any foreign medical institutes to Indian medical colleges," he said.

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In pursuance of the Supreme Court’s directions, the NMC in a public notice on July 28 devised a scheme under which Indian students in the last year of their undergraduate medicine course who left their foreign institute due to COVID-19 or Russia-Ukraine conflict and completed their studies and have been granted a certificate of completing course/degree by that institute on or before June 30 shall be allowed to appear in Foreign Medical Graduate Examination, the letter said.

"Thereafter, upon qualifying the FMG examination, such foreign medical graduates are required to undergo Compulsory Rotating Medical Internship (CRMI) for a period of 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. "Foreign medical graduates will be eligible to get registration only after completing the CRMI of two years," the letter said.