Foreign medical graduates to approach Bombay High Court against FMGE

Since September 2002, over 2.36 lakh foreign graduates have appeared for the FMGE, while only 45, 759 have been able to clear the examination, which is 19.36%

A group of MBBS graduates from foreign medical colleges have decided to approach the Bombay High Court seeking relief for themselves from the FMGE examination. These medical graduates they are treated below par compared to their Indian counterparts despite having equal qualification and equally talented.

Vipul Thanthavalaki one of the foreign medical graduates who have compiled data of past 36 FMG examinations have decided to submit the data in the high court to highlight the injustice against students who have completed their MBBS from abroad.

As per the data, since September 2002, over 2.36 lakh foreign graduates have appeared for the FMGE, while only 45, 759 have been able to clear the examination, which is 19.36 percent.

Thanthavalaki told Shiksha: FMGE is conducted by the National Board of Examination (NBE) and MCI and now its NMC, since 2002. There is no transparency in this exam, till today not a single question paper or answer key has been given by the NBE to students. Every exam has some criteria on how to conduct the exam and what level of question paper has to be asked, but NBE is not following any kind of criteria and we see passing percentage is very low.”

He said that this exam is for those who completed their medical study from outside of India, and this is just a screening test for students, but now this exams level is very hard.

The group of foreign medical graduates who are planning to approach the Bombay High Court have claimed that the well qualified foreign returned doctors are unable to clear a simple screening test which will enable them to proceed for completing their internship and further registration with the respective State Medical Councils to practice as Doctors in the Country. "That after discussing with the FMGs, it is observed that one of the main reasons for failure in the Screening Tests is that the Government of India (GoI), erstwhile Medical Council of India (MCI) and National Board of Examinations (NBE) have not conducted the Screening Tests as per the 20 subjects mentioned in the Information Bulletins issued by the NBE," the statement reads. 

Why Indian Students go abroad?

India has over 85,000 MBBS seats for which admission takes through the national level medical entrance examination, National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET). This year alone more than 16 lakh students registered for the NEET-UG exam.

Due to the limited number of seats thousands of students look for medical colleges outside India and every year thousands of students go to countries like Russia, China, the Philippines, Ukraine, Russia, Uzbekistan, etc with a dream to become doctors.

To come back and practice as doctors in India, they need to clear the FMGE examination.

For the past few years, foreign medical graduates are demanding that the FMGE should be a screening exam and not a highly competitive exam. These graduates allege that there is zero transparency in conducting this national level exam and the exam is aimed to fail students rather than screening them for their medical knowledge.

“If for PG the cut-off is reduced to 30%, then why FMGE which is just a screening exam is made so difficult up to the level of PG and yet its cut-off is higher than PG which is made 50% for FMGE,” alleges a foreign graduate from Russia who did not wish to be named. He went on to say,: “Did all we foreign medical graduates come back from the prestigious government medical universities/colleges (WHO recognised and passed all state-level exams there) to be so mercilessly and ruthlessly tossed by MCI/NBE in the name of a lie known as FMGE.”

FMGE June 2021

There are more than 50,000 graduates who have given FMGE five or more times but have failed each time. “Maybe there is some kind of corruption inside between NBE or private medical colleges,” Thanthavalaki said.

The FMGE exam is conducted twice a year, in the June session conducted this year, 18,048 students appeared for the examination of which only 4283 could clear it and 12,895 failed.

On the other hand, those who are a proponent of FMGE examination claim that the quality MBBS courses taught outside India is not at par with that in India and FMGE is the only way to test the knowledge of these graduates.

Lalit Mohan a Foreign Medical Graduate sharing his ordeal said that while coming home he was confident that he would clear the FMGE but when the result came he failed by a mark, and this was his third attempt. “Felt frustrated by NBE, I was crying in RAGE. Criminal thoughts were invading me against the corrupts,” Mohan wrote.

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