 "Medical")
Trichy-based Sohail Ahmed, a third-year MBBS student of Jiangsu University, China, has been stuck at home since January 2020. While his university continues to insist on online classes, Indian regulations will not recognise his medical education unless he attends a stipulated number of physical classes and does an internship at the university. Nor will the rules allow him to take a transfer to another varsity.
“We are stuck between a rock and a hard place,” says Ahmed, helplessly. “I am in my third-year of MBBS and I still don't know how to hold a syringe.”
Like Ahmed, thousands of Indian students are in a bind. China, where the highest number of Indian students seeking overseas medical education go (see box), has not yet opened its borders to foreign students for on-campus classes since the pandemic started. Its universities are, however, issuing advertisements for fresh admissions to medical colleges. February and September are admission months.
This has prompted the National Medical Commission (NMC) to issue a notification on February 8, 2022, advising caution. The NMC advisory asks students to do due diligence when choosing where to pursue medical education from, while reiterating that the commission does not recognise or approve medical courses completed only through online mode. NMC has also advised students to refer to the Foreign Medical Graduate Education (FMGE) Regulations before applying or planning to seek admission to any institution in China or elsewhere.
The FMGE regulations, which were issued on November 18, 2021, prohibit foreign medical graduates from practising in India unless they have completed a course with a minimum duration of 54 months and an internship of at least 12 months from the same foreign medical institution. The regulations prohibit a transfer of the programme. As a result, Indian students enrolled in Chinese universities are stuck.
“The entire course, training and internship or clerkship shall be done outside India in the same foreign medical institution throughout the course of study and no part of medical training and internship shall be done in India or in any country other than the country from which the primary medical qualification is obtained,” the regulations say.
The students are bound not just by the latest regulations but also by the erstwhile Medical Council of India (MCI) rules, Aruna Vanikar, president of NMC’s undergraduate medical education board, tells Business Standard.
“This applies not just to those who plan to study abroad in countries like China on or after November 18, 2021 but to also those who are already studying abroad,” Vanikar says. “The regulations require that they meet 75 per cent attendance for practicals, and even if their theory is online, their college should give a degree that would be recognised for practice in that country.”
NMC’s notification states: “It has come to the notice of the Ministry of External Affairs that few universities in the People’s Republic of China have started issuing notices for admission to MBBS programmes for the current and upcoming academic years. In this context, any prospective student needs to be aware that the Government of People’s Republic of China has imposed strict travel restrictions in the wake of Covid-19 and suspended all visas since November 2020. A large number of international students including Indian students have not been able to return to China to continue their studies due to these restrictions. Thus far, there has been no relaxation in the restrictions. Further, the Chinese authorities have conveyed earlier that courses will be conducted online.”
The regulations not only affect Indian students pursuing medical education at universities in China but also those in the Philippines, the Caribbean Islands and Kyrgyzstan, among others, says M Kalidhas, director of Mediseats Abroad, a leading Chennai-based medical education consultant.
“The latest NMC regulations require both 54 months, or 4.5 years, of medical education and one year of internship. However, there are certain universities offering either programmes of lesser duration or do not offer internships in these countries,” Kalidhas says.
Cost benefit analysis
A major reason Indian students seek admission in these universities is that private medical education there is far cheaper than in India.
While an MBBS course at a private university costs between Rs 80 lakh and Rs 1 crore in India, in countries like China and Philippines, it costs about Rs 25 lakh, says Sameer Yadav, an Ahmedabad-based consultant. In Belarus, it costs roughly Rs 30 lakh and in Russia, Rs 40-45 lakh. “Besides, medical programmes in these countries are recognised in the US and the UK with graduates needing to only clear a licensing test,” Yadav adds.
Besides China, the Ukrainian crisis, too, has upset the plans of Indian students seeking admission in the country that now has an armed Russia sitting at its borders.
“While I am stuck for three years with zero practical education and unable to transfer my programme, my sister who just cleared Class 12 has applied to universities in Ukraine (to study medicine). But with a war-like situation there, she will defer her admission and look for better destinations next year,” says Salem-based Vidyasri M (name changed on request), another third-year student of Jiangsu University.
B Suresh, pro chancellor of JSS Academy of Higher Education and Research, Mysore, however, is of the view that this period of uncertainty is temporary. Medical education, he says, is a long game and besides, NMC regulations allow for a foreign medical graduation courses to be completed within 10 years of the date of joining.
“Studying medicine is an ambitious goal for those who pursue it,” he says. “Those who don't get seats in India go abroad, and this is only going to increase.”
