Faridkot: Fate of 100 foreign medical graduates hangs in balance

Faridkot, June 17

About 100 students with medical degrees from foreign universities have cleared the Foreign Medical Graduate Exam (FMGE), a screening test mandated by the National Medical Commission (NMC), five months ago. But they are still waiting for the start of their two-year compulsory rotating medical internship (CRMI) at the state medical colleges/institutes to become eligible to receive a permanent registration certificate from the Punjab Medical Council (PMC) to practise medicine in the state.

The PMC is dithering on the allotment of seats to these foreign medical graduates for their internship because of a ‘row’ over the payment of stipend to these students.

As most of the medical colleges/institutions in the state don’t pay monthly stipend to the foreign medical graduates and many students, already undergoing the CRMI, have approached the Punjab and Haryana High Court, demanding monthly stipend in parity with the domestic MBBS interns, the PMC is waiting for the court orders before allocating seats to the applicants for the CRMI.

However, as the delay in starting of their CRMI is causing loss to about 70 new applicants, who have cleared their FMGE in January this year, some of them have approached the PMC giving an undertaking that they would not demand stipend during their internship.

Dr Akash Deep Aggarwal, secretary, PMC, confirms that many students have approached the PMC to start their internship without stipend. “We have already raised the matter with the state Ministry of Medical Education and Health and a proposal has also been sent to the Finance Department to allow stipend to all foreign medical graduates during their one year of the CRMI. We are waiting for the nod from the Finance Department,” said Aggarwal.

All foreign medical graduates have to undergo two years of CRMI rather than the normal one-year period before they are permitted to practise medicine here.

It was due to the conflict in Russia and Ukraine that several foreign medical graduates were unable to finish their training in those countries offline

Justifying the two-year internship of foreign medical graduates, the NMC had issued a public notice on June 7 saying that it was observed that many foreign medical graduates were maliciously obtaining compensatory certificate from their parent universities for the online classes carried by them. The medical profession deals with precious human life, the life of Indian citizens cannot be put at stake of poorly training medical professionals, reads the notice.