New Delhi: A medical regulatory body of India on Saturday said, “Foreign medical graduates with unfinished internships due to compelling situations that are beyond their control, like Covid and the ongoing Ukraine war, can finish it in India after clearing a screening test.”
The move – is set to benefit hundreds of Indian medical students in Ukraine who had to abandon their studies and return to India as Russia launched a full-scale invasion of the former Soviet republic.
In a circular, the National Medical Commission (NMC) said that “Considering the agony and stress faced by these students, their applications may be processed by the state medical councils provided the candidates have cleared the Foreign Medical Graduate Examination before applying for completion of internship in India.”
According to a media report, The decision was already under process, coincidently it has come at the time of the Ukraine crisis.
“The state medical councils should ensure the Foreign Medical Graduate Examination (FMGE) conducted by the National Board of Examination (NBE) should be cleared by the candidates seeking registration in India. If the candidate is found fulfilling criteria, provisional registration may be granted by the state medical councils for a 12 months internship or balance period, as the case may be,” the circular said.
The NMC said the state medical councils should obtain an undertaking from the medical college that no fee is charged by it from the foreign medical graduates (FMGs) for permitting them to do their internship.
“The stipend and other facilities to FMGs should be extended equivalent to Indian medical graduates being trained at the government medical colleges as fixed by the appropriate authority,” it said.
The Indian Medical Association (IMA) had yesterday written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya urging the Centre to adjust all evacuated Indian medical students in existing medical schools in the country through an appropriate disbursed distribution.
(_Vinayak)