New Delhi: Amid the ongoing evacuation of Indian medical students from Ukraine, the National Medical Commission (NMC) on Saturday allowed Foreign Medical Graduates with incomplete internships due to compelling situations like the Covid-19 and war to apply to complete internships in India.
The medical graduates will have to clear the Foreign Medical Graduates Examination (FMGE) for completing internship in India, a circular issued by NMC stated.
In a circular, the NMC said the same 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.
"There are also some foreign medical graduates with incomplete internships due to such compelling situations which are beyond their control, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and war etc. Considering the agony and stress faced by these foreign medical graduates, their application to complete the remaining part of internship in India is considered eligible," the NMC said.
This can be helpful for hundreds of medical students from India admitted in various colleges in Ukraine who had to abandon their courses and return home due to the ongoing military aggression of Russia on the country.
"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.
Accomodate Ukraine-returnee students in Indian colleges: IMA
Expressing concern about the future of medical students who have returned home from Ukraine, the Indian Medical Association has recommended to Prime Minister Narendra Modi that they be adjusted in India medical schools as a one-time measure.
In a letter to Modi on Friday, the IMA stated that such students should be permitted to go to Indian medical colleges for the remainder of their MBBS course through an "appropriate disbursed distribution", but it should not be seen as an increase in the annual intake capacity.
The IMA has recommended that this could be done following the modalities of distribution of students in other medical schools in India if an ongoing medical college is closed.
This will also need the validation of certificate from relevant authorities so that the students' progression in Ukraine is permissible in Indian medical schools, the IMA said in the letter.
"Resultantly, on passing out they will be as good as Indian medical graduates and not foreign medical graduates," it said.
It said the analogy of the proposition is drawn on the basis of explicit modality which is availed in the Indian context in case of the closure of an ongoing medical college in India.
Under such circumstances, the IMA said in the letter, that students already admitted in these colleges are "appropriately disbursed into other medical schools in India in terms of a structured procedure which is prescribed and the same is taken as a one-time exception and not to be quoted as a precedence and construed as an augmentation or increase".
The doctors' body said it is concerned about the fate and future of all these medical students admitted in Ukraine who have turned out to be hapless victims of the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine.
Hundreds of medical students from India admitted in various colleges in Ukraine have to abandon their courses and return home after it became dangerous to stay there due to the ongoing war between the two neighbours.
"Waiting for the things to take an appropriate shape and thereby keeping the fate of all these medical students in limbo cannot be taken as a worthwhile exercise," the letter stated.
(With PTI inputs.)