Confusion over NMR Registration: Doctors Urge NMC to Simplify Process

New Delhi: Facing troubles in the process of registration in the National Medical Register (NMR), the doctors have urged the authorities concerned to simplify the process by automatically converting the State registration into national registration by the Central Government.

This comes after doctors across the country alleged that they were facing a mismatch regarding the details of the Aadhar card, State medical board registration including spellings of names and surnames, etc.

The National Medical Commission (NMC) introduced the National Medical Register (NMR) to have a consolidated list of allopathic doctors practising in the country. This dynamic database will be a central repository of all registered doctors and the verification of the authenticity of these doctors will be done by Aadhaar IDs.

All the MBBS doctors who are registered on the Indian Medical Register (IMR) have to register again on the NMR, the NMC said in a public notice recently, and added that all medical colleges/institutions, state medical councils (SMCs) are inter-linked on the portal.

Also Read: National Medical Register: NMC begins registration, All doctors to have unique IDs

Earlier, the Commission mentioned in a notice that some data in the NMR would be visible to the public and others will only be visible to the Ethics and Medical Registration Board (EMRB) of NMC, SMC, National Board of Examinations (NBE) and medical institutes and RMPs as per requirements.

To complete the registration process on the NMR, the doctors need to have their Aadhaar ID, digital copy of their MBBS degree certificate and registration certificate of the State Medical Council/Medical Council of India.

However, as per the latest media report by The Hindu, some of the doctors have pointed out that the process was especially confusion since they were facing problems due to the mismatch in details of Aadhaar, State Medical Board Registration including name spellings, surname etc. Due to this, they now have to file affidavits to establish their identity, which is resulting in confusion and further delay in the whole process. 

Confirming this, the National President of the Indian Medical Association (IMA), Dr. K.V. Asokan recently informed the Daily that the association was getting feedback from many doctors across India regarding the registration process and the most common complaints were that the process was complex and cumbersome.

Although IMA has acknowledged the benefits of the system including the weeding out of the unqualified persons and bringing in the case for doctors practicing in multiple States, it also mentioned that it would request NMC to consider the problems currently being faced by the doctors and request for rectification of the same.

Commenting on the issue, Health Activist from Kerala Dr. K.V. Babu informed the Daily that doctors from his State were facing problems as their names differ in their degrees, State Medical Councils and their Aadhaar cards. 

He highlighted the need for a simplified process and added, "We want a simple registration process and ideally the MBBS degree and State medical councils registration certificates should be sufficient for registration."

Also Read: Only MBBS doctors can register on NMR portal for now, provision for Registration of additional qualifications to be available soon: NMC