The National Medical Commission (NMC) has said that the BS course in Philippines cannot be equated with the MBBS course in India.
In a communication on March 25, the commission said that a group of medical students who are pursuing the course in that country had submitted representations ahead of publication of Regulations for issuing licence to foreign medical graduates in 2021. They had sought exemption or special dispensation for the courses. However, after examination it was found that BS and MD courses were separate degrees in Philippines.
An estimated 10,000 students from India are studying medicine in Philippines.
The commission said that the BS course there is a course of Bachelor of Science for candidates seeking to join courses in field of science and research. This comprises subjects in Biology similar to Class XI and XII in India. It is a pre-medical course, after the completion of which the candidates will have to appear in a management aptitude test to seek admission to the four-year MD Course, which is equivalent to the MBBS.
In the BS course, the candidates are not being taught pre-clinical subjects like Anatomy, Biochemistry, Biophysics, Microbiology. Rather they are being taught subjects like Biology, Psychology which is equivalent to Class XII in India. It does not even qualify a candidate to be eligible for admission to the MBBS here.
The Graduate Medical Education Regulations, 1997, prescribe that the candidates must clear the NEET-UG Examination for becoming eligible for counselling to be considered for admission to the MBBS course. To appear in NEET-UG, the candidates must have studied regular, simultaneous, co-terminus subjects of Physics, Chemistry and Biology in the last two years of their school education. Thus, a candidate who has already undergone the requisite studies shall not gain any further knowledge by undergoing the BS course.
Therefore, the students who took admissions to these foreign medical qualification/course after the publication of gazette notification on November 18 last year cannot be treated as eligible for registration to practice medicine in India, the commission said. However, those who have taken admission in MD course in Philippines prior to the publication of the Regulations can be considered if they fulfill other prevailing eligibility criteria for registration.
