New Delhi: According to a notification issued on Friday, the National Board of Education, which administers tests for admission to post-graduate medical courses, has extended the deadline for completion of the mandatory one-year internship to June 30.
The previous cut-off date of March 30 would have made more than half of the current batch ineligible for the exam, prompting requests for an extension from various resident doctors' associations.
MBBS students who enrolled in their undergraduate colleges in 2017 finished their four-year academic course in January 2021 following which they were required to complete a year-long medical internship.
MBBS results for the final semester are generally released by March every year, as per NMC rules, after which students can apply for their internship tenure.
Owing to the pandemic, several medical colleges failed to declare the student results on time postponing their internships. “Nearly 80% of the students got their results only by April or May,” explained Dr. Rohan Krishnan, the national chairman of the Federation of All India Medical Association.
This covid induced delay snowballed into an entire batch of medical students who are ineligible for the NEET PG 2023, leading to the extension of the NEET PG internship eligibility.
NEET-PG is expected to be phased out starting next year, with the government implementing a new two-part exit test for all MBBS students that will serve as the basis for their registration as doctors and admission to further PG courses.
