The future of Indian students studying medicine from abroad including Ukraine and China is stuck in the balance. After saving his life, his biggest concern is to save his career and degree.
Where on one hand the Indians studying in Ukraine have to return home due to the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine. At the same time, students who returned to India due to Corona epidemic two years ago from China have not been able to return back to China yet.
Here, when will the war between Russia and Ukraine end? When will the situation be normal there as before? When will these Indian students go back to Ukraine? And when will they start their studies again? Will their degrees become worthless due to the long gap in studies? No one is in a position to answer all these questions as of now.
Think of the crisis on the career like this
Medical studies in Ukraine are completed in six years. After this, the students have to do one year compulsory internship. Then one year supervised internship is also required to practice in India and become eligible for FMGE i.e. Foreign Medical Graduate Examination (FMGE) to obtain a license. After that you have to qualify the FMG exam. There is a maximum time limit of 10 years from the date of admission in MBBS to qualify this exam. Students who come from Ukraine to study, their seven years have been completed there. One year internship in the country and coaching or preparation for FMG is also required. So eight years are over. To qualify the Foreign Medical Graduate Exam, students have to prepare a lot. For this, students have only two years left. Sometimes it takes two to three years to qualify for FMGE.
What’s the problem with the degree?
President of the Federation of Resident Doctors Association of India, Dr. Manish told in a conversation with AnyTV.com that if we talk about the students who have returned from Ukraine, many of these students are of the first year, some of the second, third and fourth year. Also in final year. The continuing uncertainty over the war threatens a long gap in the education of these students. The government is also bound by rules. In such a situation, these students are worried about their future, because due to not being able to return for a long time, their studies will be interrupted and their medical degree will also be in danger. At the same time, the students who are in their final year are worried about the time limit to qualify the FMG exam. The challenge before the students is that after finishing their studies and doing internship, they will not get enough time to prepare for qualifying the FMG exam.
Hundreds of students studying from China are also upset
On the other hand, hundreds of students who returned to India in the last two years due to the Corona epidemic are still stuck in the country. These include medical students from many countries including China, Philippines, who have not yet been called back by the respective countries, universities there. Some countries, such as China, still impose travel restrictions, citing the COVID-19 epidemic, and ban the issuance of Chinese visas to foreign nationals. In such a situation, hundreds of Indian students who were studying medicine from China could not return. Although their studies continue through online medium, but online education is not recognized in the medical education sector in India. The National Medical Commission does not recognize medical degrees taught online.
Medical degree studied online is not valid
As per the rules of the National Medical Commission, only those degrees are accepted in the field of medical education which are part of the full time regular course. Any kind of online education degree is not accepted in the medical education field. Apart from this, due to the non-implementation of credit system scheme on the lines of European countries, students studying in one country, state or one university cannot enroll in any other country, state and university. Apart from this, we also do not have the availability of enough medical seats that the government can allow all the students to study in India.