Every year, a record number of Indian students are moving abroad to study medicine due to a small number of seats available in the home country. But a recent data shows nearly 85 percent of Indian students holding MBBS degree from a foreign country have failed to clear an exam that grants the license to practice in India.

The Foreign Medical Graduate Examination conducted in India saw around 61,500 foreign MBBS graduates in attendance between 2015 and 2018, of which only about 8,7000 were able to qualify.  

In order to practice in India, all foreign MBBS degree holders other than those from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, need to clear the FMGE, conducted by the National Board of Examination.

According to a report by The Print, in the past six years, the pass percentage for students who cleared the FMGE ranged from a high of 28.29 in 2012-13 to a low of 9.44 in 2016-17.

It is found that not even a single Indian national MBBS graduate from Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Germany, Grenada, Haiti, Hungary, Lithuania, Papua New Guinea, Thailand, and Zambia were able to clear the exam.  

Substandard Education

Lack of quality education offered at some medical colleges abroad is considered one of the reasons behind such graduates failing to crack FMGE.

In order to deal with this problem, the Board of Governors (BoG) under the Medical Council of India (MCI) are thinking to take measures like orientation courses, simulation exercises or even having them work with some private hospitals to gain more experience.

By Sowmya Sangam