When Ahnaf Ishaq left his third-year medical examinations half-finished in Tehran and boarded an evacuation flight to Delhi, he carried with him more than just a hastily packed suitcase. He brought the weight of three years of medical education, the dreams of a career in medicine, and the crushing uncertainty of whether any of it would matter in the eyes of India's medical establishment.

Ishaq is among over 1,500 Indian medical students evacuated from Iran as the Israel-Iran conflict escalated in 2025. His story mirrors that of thousands of Foreign Medical Graduates (FMG) who have found themselves caught between geopolitical crossfire and India's rigid medical education framework. 

As missiles rained over Tehran, the Indian government launched Operation Sindhu, coordinating with Iranian universities to move students from Tehran to Qom and later Mashhad, from where they were airlifted to New Delhi. Simultaneously, Operation Ajay resumed quietly, evacuating Indian nationals from Israel. 

But while the immediate physical danger ended with their safe return to Indian soil, a different kind of uncertainty began, one far more prolonged and quietly devastating. 

These students, many of whom went abroad not by choice but by compulsion, driven by NEET’s rigid cut-offs and lack of adequate medical seats in India, now find themselves stranded in an academic no-man’s land. After investing years of effort and significant financial resources into foreign medical training, they are once again at the mercy of the very system that couldn’t accommodate them in the first place.

“The world has seen a surge in regional conflicts. The future of such students has been left suspended,” says Dr Shubham Anand, National Chairman of the Global Association of Indian Medical Students (GAIMS). “The National Medical Commission (NMC) must frame a policy to safeguard the interests of FMGs whose careers are compromised by events beyond their control. This began with the Ukraine-Russia war three years ago. We can’t keep relying on quick fixes.”

The pattern is depressingly familiar. When conflict erupts, Indian embassies coordinate evacuations, students return home safely, and then the real struggle begins. 

The NMC, India's medical education regulator, has no standing framework for students whose education is disrupted by war. Instead, it operates through a series of ad hoc exceptions and one-time measures that create more confusion than clarity.

India’s regulations demand that FMGs complete their internship in the same country where their degree was earned. For students evacuated from conflict zones, this is often impossible. 

Although the NMC made exceptions for Ukraine returnees, allowing them to intern in India, many were required to undergo extended internships, some lasting twice the usual duration, raising questions of fairness and consistency.

Faysal Lateef, who was just ten months away from completing his MBBS at Iran University of Medical Sciences, captures the desperation perfectly. “The government needs to step in and help us,” he says. “Completing the MBBS is contingent on fulfilling clinical rotations across all 19 core subjects. If returning to Iran becomes unviable and no alternative is provided, we may be left with no recourse but public protest.”

“The NMC has responded in the past, but inconsistently,” says Dr Dhruv Chauhan, National Spokesperson for the Indian Medical Association (IMA). “Crises like these aren’t rare anymore. It’s time to move beyond one-off decisions and establish a clear, lasting policy. Further, students shouldn’t be made to extend their internships to make up for systemic gaps, they shouldn’t have to bear the cost of disruptions beyond their control.”

Another glaring gap is the absence of a credit transfer or bridging mechanism. Unlike countries that allow displaced students to continue their education seamlessly, India offers no academic continuity for FMGs. The options are stark: return to a war zone or abandon years of investment.

“We’ve been closely tracking updates from our university and the Iranian medical council, but rotations are still on hold. Realistically, going back may no longer be an option,” says Suhail Amin Banday, a final-year student from Urmia University. “The NMC needs to introduce an emergency provision, whether that’s alternative internship pathways in India or greater flexibility for students affected by war.”

His appeal echoes a growing consensus among students and experts alike, that temporary relief measures are no longer enough in the face of recurring global crises.

The psychological impact in the aftermath has been both severe and persistent on the students.

Lateef recounts how constant sirens, explosions, and cyber outages triggered stress-related hair loss. “Our bodies were in fight-or-flight mode for days. The isolation, the silence, the fear, it doesn’t go away after a flight home.” 

Banday echoes the sentiment: “Even if things calm down, the emotional scars remain. We're not just fighting to finish our degrees, we’re trying to rebuild our sense of safety and purpose.”

The legal system has repeatedly intervened where policy has failed. The Supreme Court's orders during the Ukraine crisis, various high court judgments, and ongoing writ petitions reflect a pattern of judicial intervention to protect student rights that the NMC has been unable or unwilling to safeguard proactively.

As Ishaq waits in limbo, hoping for clarity from the NMC, his words carry the weight of thousands of similar stories: “If going back isn’t possible, it would mean losing everything I’ve built over the past three years.”

The question facing India's medical establishment is whether it will continue to treat these students as exceptional cases requiring judicial intervention or finally develop the institutional framework needed to protect the medical careers of its citizens caught in an increasingly unstable world.

The time for ad hoc solutions and one-time exceptions has passed. With geopolitical tensions showing no signs of abating, India needs a comprehensive, standing policy framework that treats emergency evacuations not as anomalies but as predictable challenges requiring systematic solutions. 

The dreams of thousands of aspiring doctors depend on it.