New Delhi: Aspirants will have the benefit of multiple attempts to seek a licence to practise medicine after clearing the National Exit Test (NExT), said a new notification issued by the National Medical Commission (NMC) Friday. It, however, added that aspirants will have to clear all six papers in the NExT-1 for a postgraduate seat in a medical college.
The gazette notification over the proposed test, which is set to replace the final year MBBS examination — National Entrance cum Eligibility Test-PG (NEET PG) and the Foreign Medical Graduate Examination (FMGE) — also clarified that NEET PG will continue to be conducted for previous batches till NExT replaces it for admission to postgraduate courses.
Sections of medical students who took admission to MBBS in 2019 and are now in their final year have expressed reservations about the proposed examination, saying that they had been preparing for a different pattern and not a multiple choice-based examination.
The proposed examination will be conducted in two parts, NExT-1 and NExT-2.
While NExT-1 will be a multiple choice questions-based online examination to be held across universities by an NMC-designated agency, NExT-2 will be a practical examination, conducted by respective universities after students complete their internships.
NExT-2 will only be a ‘pass or fail examination’, while the score from NExT-1 will be used to prepare a merit list for broad speciality PG seats across medical colleges.
NExT-1 is to be held twice a year, in May and November, starting next year.
The notification issued Friday added that there will be no restrictions on the number of attempts in NExT-1, but an aspirant will have to clear both steps of NExT within 10 years of joining MBBS. Also, students will be allowed to appear in NExT-1 to improve their scores for admission to PG courses only after clearing NExT-2.
However, for the purpose of allocating a PG seat, only the score from the last NExT-1 which a student appeared in would be considered even if the marks in the last attempt are lower than the marks scored in the previous attempt.
The notification said that while medical graduates in India have to clear all six papers of NExT-1 and practical exams held by the university, foreign medical graduates who wish to receive a licence to practise medicine in India only need to clear all six papers of NExT-1.
On the other hand, those who already have a licence to practise medicine and wish to pursue PG courses in India, have to appear only for NExT-1.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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