Coming Soon: An Integrated Web Portal for Medical Registration of Doctors in National Medical Register by NMC

New Delhi: An integrated web portal catering to all stakeholders of the medical community including State Medical Councils (SMC), and medical colleges will soon be launched by the National Medical Commission (NMC), a recent advisory issued by the Apex medical regulator has stated.

The advisory also pointed out that this portal will be used for the registration of medical practitioners. The Commission further clarified that this process of setting up the portal is likely to take some more time and once the portal gets activated, the registration process shall begin.

Allaying the fears of medical practitioners about the deadline of registration, the Commission in its Advisory clearly noted that "...sufficient time shall be allowed and extended if need be to all the stakeholders for onboarding and operationalizing the registration process."

"Intimation regarding operationalization of portal shall be circulated widely. The detailed guidelines shall be issued based on the progress made in this regard time to time on the official website of NMC and NMR portal (once it is operational)," clarified the Apex medical commission.

The advisory comes allaying the fears of doctors at a time when a recent social media message pressed the panic button amongst medical practitioners about their medical registration causing further fear in the medical fraternity.

Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that a fake WhatsApp message had gone viral asking doctors to apply for their Unique Identification Number on the NMC portal by August 10, 2023.

Referring to the "Registration of Medical Practitioners and Licence to Practice Medicine Regulations", which was published in the Gazette of India on May 10, 2023, the viral WhatsApp message claimed, "Everyone has to apply for UID on EMRB portal." It further stated that "Last date for existing practitioners 10 August 2023."

Medical Dialogues did a fact-check story around this viral message whereby the NMC officials clarified that the viral message was a fake and the registration link mentioned in that message was actually an old one already existing on the NMC website.

The doctors were worried over the deadline for registration because, in the Gazetted notification issued on May 10, 2023, NMC announced its decision of having a National Medical Register for all registered medical practitioners. The Commission also mentioned how the doctors in India will now have a Unique Identification (UID) Number, which shall be generated centrally by the NMC Ethics Board.

According to Section 6(a) of the NMC Regulations, in order to get a licence to practice in India, the medical practitioners will have to make an application through a web portal of the Ethics and Medical Registration Board. Further, in the Gazette notification, NMC gave only three months of time to the existing medical practitioners to update in the web portal of the NMC Ethics Board.

Until now NMC did not offer any clarification regarding the web portal for the registration of doctors. However, finally, addressing the issue, NMC Ethics and Medical Registration Board (EMRB) has issued an advisory regarding the implementation of the National Medical Register (NMR).

In the advisory, NMC referred to Section 11 under Chapter III (Transitory Provisions) of "Registration of Medical Practitioners and Licence to Practice Medicine Regulations, 2023", which stated as under:

"All the existing medical practitioner enrolled in the Indian Medical Register or the State Medical Register, not having the registration number as per these Regulation shall update in the web portal of the Ethics & Medical Registration Board within a period of three months of publishing of these Regulation and obtain the Registration Number as a onetime measure and the licence so generated shall be valid for period of five years from the date of issuance. For the purpose of updating of licence of such medical practitioner, no fee shall be charged by EMRB, NMC."

Referring to the fact that the three months time period after the publication of the Regulations is almost at an end, the Commission mentioned, "In view of the fact that the time period of three months stated in the above referred para is approaching fast, general public is hereby informed that National Medical Commission is in the process of launching an integrated web portal catering to all stakeholders (like SMC, Medical Colleges & RMPs, etc.,). However the same is likely to take some more time. Once the portal gets activated, the registration process shall begin, and sufficient time shall be allowed and extended if need be to all the stakeholders for onboarding and operationalizing the registration process."

"Intimation regarding operationalization of portal shall be circulated widely. The detailed guidelines shall be issued based on the progress made in this regard time to time on the official website of NMC and NMR portal (once it is operational)," the Commission further stated.

To view the NMC Advisory, click on the link below:

https://medicaldialogues.in/pdf_upload/nmc-national-medical-register-portal-216110.pdf

Also Read: Fake Alert: Viral Whatsapp Message asking to register on NMC portals sending doctors on a frenzy