Wish to Practice Medicine in India? NExT Likely to Replace FMGE in 2022

Neha Joshi
May 22, 2021
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Overseas medical graduates will need to qualify the new National Exit Test (NExT) rather than the Foreign Medical Graduate Exam (FMGE) from 2022 once the new draft recently released by NMC becomes official.
A new draft regulation has been released by the National Medical Commission (NMC) for foreign medical graduates (FMGs) who wish to practice in India. As per the draft, the Screening Test which was earlier conducted by MCI for FMGs shall be amended. Now, the foreign medical graduates will need to qualify for the new National Exit Test (NExT) rather than the FMGE Screening Test ranging from 2022. The new draft is predicted to be official within the next gazette publication.

As per the draft, medical graduates from abroad will have to clear the NExT within two years of acquiring a foreign MBBS degree to practice medicine in India. Also, the difficulty level of NeXT will be higher than that of FMGE. The exam will also restrict the options for candidates to appear for the exam.

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While there is a mixed option about the new format of exam from medical experts and professionals across the country, the official announcement will be likely to be released soon will be considered as a final decision taken by NMC (which replaced the MCI in 2020)

Dr Zayapragassarazan Z- Head-Medical Education, JIPMER said that a strict mechanism to filter the best medical professionals and doctors is the need of the hour so that the hospital and medical centres in India can have a well medical professional. He said that all medical graduates should take the common entrance to qualify for a medical license to practice in India.

Till date, FMGE is the only qualifying examination for foreign medical graduates to qualify to get a medical licence to practice in India. FMGE is conducted twice a year and it evaluates the candidate based on his/ her conceptual knowledge of the subject.

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