The NMC says that Indian students who study medicine abroad after November 18, 2021, may not be granted a licence to practise medicine in India when they return.
The Indian medical education regulator, the National Medical Commission (NMC), has enacted new rules that prevent them from taking the Exit Exam and practising medicine in India.
These NMC rules include a number of requirements that are nearly impossible for any Indian citizen with a foreign degree to meet.
For example, one of the requirements states that a foreign graduate can only practise in India if he or she is registered with the appropriate professional regulatory body in the country where the degree was earned.
According to legal and health experts, no country will allow such a registration, even if the candidate has a valid degree, because it also requires a work visa.
Moreover, they argue that if a few candidates obtain a work visa and the necessary registration with the foreign regulatory body, why would they come to India?
A medical student, Likhitha Yanmandala, who has challenged these rules in the Delhi High Court, said that If a candidate obtains registration to practise in another country and then comes to India, he must first pass the National Exit Exam before receiving a licence to practise in India.
“When India doesn’t allow foreigners permanent registration and right to practice in the country even if they do their MBBS from here, why will other countries do so?” he added.
Moreover, when the erstwhile regulator, the Medical Council of India (MCI), regulated foreign graduates, there was no such situation.
They used to only check if a candidate had a valid foreign degree. On September 24, 2020, the MCI was replaced by the NMC.
NMC new norms after establishment
The National Medical Commission (Foreign Medical Graduate Licentiate) Regulations, 2021, were drafted after the NMC was established and went into effect on November 18, 2021.
For the first time, these Regulations impose certain new conditions on students who study undergraduate medical courses abroad that are equivalent to MBBS in India.
The duration of the course and the medium of instruction are two other conditions that health and legal experts find unusual. According to the regulations, the course must last at least 54 months and the only medium of instruction must be English.
These conditions prevent degree holders from Russia, China, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and other countries from returning to India to practise because the medium of instruction in all of these countries is their native language rather than English.
“Very few colleges in these countries offer courses in English. Students, who come to India to study here, take language crash courses for a few months,” a student studying in Russia said.
Countries with English as a medium of instruction, such as the Philippines, do not have 54 months of undergraduate courses because they teach in two parts: BS Biology and MD. The NMC recently stated that BS Biology will not be recognised.
“Among all these conditions, the biggest stumbling block is the one which mandates Indian doctors with foreign degrees to get registered with the regulatory or the competent bodies of those countries from where the degrees have been awarded,” a health expert associated with MCI said.
Thousands of students have already gone abroad to study medicine after November 18, 2021, he said, noting that between 8,000 and 10,000 students go to countries such as the Philippines, Bangladesh, Georgia, Nepal, Ukraine, Armenia, Russia, China, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan each year to pursue their medical dreams.
Despite the fact that the new regulations have been in effect for more than four months, the majority of students and their parents are still unaware of their implications for their future careers.
Now that they are beginning to comprehend the ramifications of such rules, their hopes are pinned on the Delhi High Court to rule in their favour, or else their careers and hard-earned money will be squandered.
Yanmandala has demanded that these regulations be quashed, claiming that the NMC Act lacks such provisions and that the NMC is imposing conditions that go beyond the Act’s mandate.
He claims that while MCI recognised medical education provided by foreign medical universities and prescribed qualifications for admission to such universities, it had never imposed such “obnoxious” conditions.
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