MBBS in China: India issues advisory for students
New Delhi: India has issued a detailed advisory related to studying MBBS course at Chinese medical schools as thousands of enrolled students continue to remain stuck at home amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
In its advisory, the government has warned about the challenges they may face after studying in China, including low pass percentage, the need to learn the official spoken language there and the stringent rules for practising as a doctor in India.
More than 23,000 Indian students enrolled in various Chinese universities have been affected by the Chinese visa ban.
Also Read:India has taken up issue of return of Indian students with China, clarifies Govt
"Embassy of India in Beijing has been receiving several queries from prospective Indian students and their parents with respect to seeking admission for undergraduate clinical medicine programme in China," the embassy said in a statement on September 8, quotes ANI.
China in July said that the country has made progress on facilitating the return of Indian students and is working in tandem with relevant departments to see that the first batch of Indian students can come back to study in China at the earliest.
The Indian Embassy also shared the link to a study conducted by the National Board of Examination to highlight that only 6387 out of 40,417 students, who appeared in the FMG Examination from 2015 to 2021 have cleared it.
"The study shows that only 6387 out of 40,417 students, who appeared in FMG Examination from 2015 to 2021 have cleared it. Here, the pass percentage of Indian students who have studied clinical medicine programme in China in that period in these 45 universities was only 16 per cent," it statement further added.
Indian students pursuing medicine from Chinese Universities are unable to return to China to attend classes due to COVID-19-induced restrictions.
Earlier, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar in his meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on the sidelines of the G20 Foreign Ministers' Meeting also stressed the need for expediting the process of return of Indian students to China to attend classes at an early date.
In order to facilitate the return of Indian students, Jaishankar met with Wang Yi on March 25.
Earlier in April, the Chinese side had expressed its willingness to consider facilitating the return of Indian students to China on a need-assessed basis, said the Indian Embassy in China.
Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that taking cognizance of the situation, the Supreme Court directed the NMC for formulating a policy within two months to grant temporary registration for those MBBS graduates who have completed their medical education abroad but were unable to fulfil the requirement of practical training in their parent institutes outside of India.
The matter was also considered by the Union Health Ministry along with the inputs from the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) which was forwarded by the consulates of India from Ukraine, China, and Russia, among others.
During the deliberations between the members of UGMEB and officials of the health ministry and MEA, it was pointed out that 20,672 Indian students are enrolled in different medical colleges and universities in Ukraine, all of which are providing online classes to them.
Thereafter, National Medical Commission told the Supreme Court that final-year MBBS students who returned to India due to Covid and Russia-Ukraine war and got degrees on a date to be notified will be permitted for the FMGE exam.
In an affidavit on June 23, the National Medical Commission (NMC) said upon qualifying for the Foreign Medical Graduate (FMG) exam, such foreign medical graduates will be required to undergo a Compulsory Rotating Medical Internship (CRMI) for two years instead of the existing one year norm.
The foreign medical graduates will be eligible to get registration only after completing the CRMI for two years. The internship period has been doubled to make up for the clinical training which could not be physically attended by the foreign medical graduates during their course in the institutes abroad and to familiarise them with the practice of medicine under Indian conditions, the NMC affidavit said.
