Over 16,000 Foreign Medical Graduates left in the lurch as admit cards withheld, protests erupt

About 16,000 Foreign Medical Graduates (FMGs) are irked and worried about not being able to appear for the Foreign Medical Graduate Examination (FMGE) 2023. "This is mental harassment," states Dr Jaswant Singh, Founder of DPGI, a coaching institute for FMGE.

With only a few hours left for the exam, the students have not yet received their admit cards. National Board of Examinations (NBE), which regulates the FMGE, has conveyed that there were irregularities in the students' documents, due to which their admit cards will not be issued. Students, however, disagree. They even staged a protest in front of NBE yesterday, January 18, demanding to be allowed to appear for the exam. But they were not.

Dr Jaswant explains that the NBE on its part sent reminders to the students about editing their applications and also opened the editing window a couple of times. "However, some of the emailed reminders went into the Spam folder for some, while others were not aware of them. The students who came across the notices, made changes in their applications. Still, they were not approved," he said.

In a video shared by Dr Jaswant, a student, Dr Aditya, is seen to be stating that he has been appearing for FMGE since 2018 using the same documents. "They allowed me in the past, but this year, they have withheld my admit card, which is confusing," the student says. The FMGE coach claims that there are many others in the same situation as Dr Aditya.

"I have been requesting the NBE for the past three days to reopen the application editing window once more for a few hours. Another solution I proposed was to verify the students' documents after the exam before declaring the results. If any discrepancy is found in the document of any student, his/her results can be withheld. But they should be allowed to appear for the exam. However, the NBE did not consider these solutions," Dr Jaswant said.

Now that the students have been barred from the exam, Dr Jaswant says that the students will be deeply affected as they have been preparing for the exam for the last six months. "FMGE is the most expensive exam in India. Students, including those who belong to low-income backgrounds and have loans to pay back, have spent lakhs of rupees, which will be of no use now. And this may be the last FMGE before NExT (National Exit Test) is introduced," he sighs.