Candidates, who took the Foreign Medical Graduate Examination (FMGE) on June 4, said that the paper was tricky this time around with many questions about the clinical aspects of medicine which was not the norm earlier.
“This is my second attempt at FMGE and unlike earlier, there were a lot more clinical questions,” said Diwakar Saraswat, an FMGE candidate who did his MBBS from Harbin University in China in 2021 but couldn’t clear the examination in December 2021.
“I am confident that I will pass the exam this time around because, despite the high-level questions, it was easy,” added Diwakar who raised issues about medical councils across the country having different rules for foreign medical graduates, especially for those who have studied from universities in countries such as Russia, China, Philippines, Ukraine, etc.
“Different medical councils have separate rules when it comes to foreign medical graduates. Medical councils in states such as Tamil Nadu and Kerala have specific rules on students attending more than three semesters online, while my state Rajasthan has not specified any rules regarding the same. It’s better if we have more clarity on the rules by making them uniform,” stated Diwakar who also helps students study abroad, in countries such as Kazakhstan, Armenia, Georgia, etc.
Shivani Kaur, a candidate who lives in Chandigarh, completed her graduation in 2019 from China but has not been able to clear FMGE since though she hopes that’s not the case this time around.
“The second paper was quite lengthy and a lot fewer images were provided for reference in the exam,” said Shivani, who feels the exam should have been a bit easier as she wants to complete her internship as soon as possible. “Many doctors, during Covid, asked for help from students to assist them in handling the patients but due to the ambiguity of our status we were not able to,” added Shivani.
Suhail Ahmad, a resident of Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh who studied in Ukraine and Kazakhstan, believes that the questions in FMGE this time around signify the prominence it is gaining and the quality skills expected from them. “More one-liner questions were asked to us. For example, in a subject like Anatomy, we are always told to study chapters on lower and upper limb thoroughly but only one question each were asked on them while Abdomen surprisingly had 3-4 questions. We were also asked almost seven questions on Physiology compared to earlier,” added Suhail, who said that though papers 1 and 2 focus on different sections the questions about Anatomy and Biochemistry were found in paper 2 as well.
Candidates, who wrote the exam in two shifts, from 9 am to 11: 30 pm and 2 pm to 4: 30 pm, expect the result to come out on June 29 or 30.
