For Gujarat students, Georgia emerges as top choice for medical education

Vadodara: The scramble for admissions to medical institutions abroad and within the country will begin once the NEET results are out.

But, in the meantime, there has been a perceptible shift among Gujarati students towards Georgia as a preferred choice for medical education over countries, including China and the Philippines. This is owing to the stringent Foreign Medical Graduate Licentiate Regulations (FMGLR) set by the National Medical Commission (NMC) and also the problems in China and Ukraine.

Georgia too has made efforts to invite Indian students there through various events organised in different parts of the country.

To be eligible for practice in India, the NMC has laid down stringent criteria for medical graduates from foreign institutes. Some key conditions include the duration of the course to be 54 months, internship of a minimum of 12 months in the same institute and also instruction in English medium.

The FMGLR further states that graduates should first be eligible to practice in the country from where they graduated, to be eligible to practice in India. Counsellors also said that not just Georgia, but also countries like Russia, Belarus and some others have emerged as alternatives.

Med colleges in Georgia comply with NMC rules
However, the preference for Georgia is higher as most medical colleges there have accreditations and affiliations like that of the World Federation for Medical Education (WFME). The institutes also comply with the NMC guidelines regarding practice in India and the students become eligible to take the test to get registered as a medical practitioner in India.

Talking about the shift in choice, consultants pointed out that besides the Ukraine war and COVID-19 in China, the new regulations played an important role in decision-making. "Institutes in the Philippines offered a course of shorter duration and graduates of these courses could not even practice in Philippines itself" said a prominent medical education abroad counsellor Achal Shah from Vadodara.

He added China mandates a test for MBBS graduates in Mandarin language for eligibility to practice in China and Gujarati students found it extremely difficult.

Ahmedabad-based consultant Paresh Vaghela said that the cost of medical education abroad was much lower than private medical colleges in India. "A graduate from Georgia can appear in the USMLE exam, unlike in some other countries. The colleges in Georgia also try to make foreign students comfortable with the Georgian language. While the education is in English, the students need to learn the local language to communicate with the patients," Vaghela explained.

Kunjal Pathak, a parent from Vadodara, has already interacted with consultants exploring the possibility of medical education in Georgia for his daughter. "We will decide after the NEET results. If she has to study abroad, we will prefer Georgia. There are other advantages too, like Indian students already there as well as the availability of Indian food, etc," he said.