Doctors of a lesser State: A long wait for permanent registrations in Andhra Pradesh Premium

Sai Alekya, a foreign medical graduate, faces delays in obtaining Permanent Registration, highlighting challenges faced by FMGs in India.

Becoming a doctor is a long-cherished dream. For some, like Sai Alekya, a foreign medical graduate (FMG) from Visakhapatnam, it has been a dream since she was all but four. But not all dreams come true, and some take a painfully long time to materialise.

On December 9, as she waited outside the Andhra Pradesh Medical Council (APMC) office located on the premises of Dr. NTR University of Health Sciences in Vijayawada for the Registrar’s response on the issuance of Permanent Registration (PR), Dr. Alekya’s mind was filled with anxiety, despondency and helplessness.

Dr. Alekya, along with 50 other FMGs, had gathered outside the APMC office to stage a protest highlighting their predicament and to get clarification from the APMC about their PRs.

“Weeks have passed by without a proper response from the APMC on what is causing the delay in granting the PRs,” she says.

After completing medical courses equivalent to MBBS (Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery) from other countries, graduates who wish to work or study in India need to clear the Foreign Medical Graduates Examination (FMGE), a screening test, to be eligible for the one-year Compulsory Rotating Medical Internship (CRMI), which Indian medical graduates also undergo. After completing the CRMI, graduates, both foreign and Indian, obtain a PR from the State Medical Council.

The FMGE, conducted by the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences, is held twice a year, in June and December. Considered one of the toughest, the pass percentage in 2023, when 10,261 out of 61,616 graduates appeared for the exam, was 16.65%. In 2022, the passing percentage for the exam was 23.35%.

In Andhra Pradesh, 73 FMGs wrote the FMGE in December 2022. They completed their internship in May 2024 and have been waiting for their PRs for six months. They all completed their medical education at universities in Russia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan.