Every year there are about thousands of Indian students who go abroad to study medical courses to become Doctors. After completion of their Foreign medical degree, they come to India and just for the sake of formality they have to appear in a Foreign Medical Graduate Exam (FMGE) after which they become qualified to practice in India.
After completion of the FMGE exam the foreign medical students get the degree of MD (Physician) which is equivalent to the MBBS degree in India. FMGE is conducted twice a year and it is five times easier than the National Exit Test (NExT) exam which is expected to be implemented by 2022 in India as per the draft regulations which has recently been released by the National Medical Commission (NMC). The question in the FMGE is based on the conceptualised questions which is even easier than the NEET PG whereas the new NExT exam is based on the Clinical questions which might be a challenging task for many foreign students.
Another thing is that the Foreign students have to clear the NExT exam within the two years after completion of their medical degree from abroad. As per the Times of India report a medical director of Multi-Speciality Hospital said “that changing the format and making students appear for it in such a short duration seems a little difficult. As per the TOI report he further adds “The quality of education provided in foreign medical colleges does not prepare the students for such exams. The government should first try to enhance the clinical knowledge of the foreign medical graduates after their return to India and then evaluate their performance. Measures should be taken to raise the standard of the Foreign graduate knowledge”.
According to the TOI report the other doctor says the NExT exam will only increase the difficulty level which many doctors will fail to qualify. The doctor was hoping the Draft regulation may not be implemented. But Dr Zayapragassaran Z, Head, Medical Education, JIPMER says “that it is the need of the hour and the hospital needs well-qualified doctors to treat the patients. There should be a strict mechanism to check and filter the doctors before allowing them to enter the system. The new move will help in ensuring quality control measure.”
He further says that “there should be a common entrance exam for all the medical students who want to practice medicine in India”. The point here is there should not be different exams for different categories of students like Indian students or foreign students. There should be a common entrance for all the medical students who want to practice medicine in India.