Foreign medical graduates (FMGs) who were affected by the COVID-19 lockdown have started an online petition seeking "fairness and certainty" in the process of issuance of permanent registrations by state medical councils.
The petition is up on change.org and is called "Equal State Registration for Foreign Medical Graduates: Ensuring Fairness and Certainty". It was started on July 17 and had 550 signatures at the time this story was uploaded. The goal of the petition is to reach 1000 signatures as of now.
The medical graduates allege that while a few states have given permanent registrations to the COVID-19-affected batch after one year of Compulsory Rotating Medical Internship (CRMI), others have not. This has happened due to "inconsistent interpretations" of the notice released by the National Medical Commission (NMC) in July 2022.
On July 28, 2022, the NMC released a notice stating that Indian students who were in the last year of their undergraduate (UG) medicine course and have completed the final year online, on or before June 30, 2022, will be eligible for registration only after completing the Compulsory Rotating Medical Internship (CRMI) for two years.
A few state medical councils have given registrations to the students who qualified the June 2022 Foreign Medical Graduate Examination (FMGE) exam before the NMC notice came in and were either undergoing internships at the time of the notice or have completed their internships. But on the other hand, many states have also denied registrations to candidates without two years of CRMI.
Now, the students have urged the NMC to release clarification about the same to ensure fair and equal treatment for foreign medical graduates.
“These students should not be subjected to the conditions in the July 2022 notice as their hospital placements and provisional certificates were based on previous guidelines. This approach will bring clarity and stability to their career paths,” the petition read.
The Federation of Resident Doctors Association (FORDA) had also written a letter to the NMC on June 20 demanding clarification on the issue.
