Centre dissolves NBEMS; NExT to be Conducted by New NMC Body

New Delhi: The draught National Medical Commission bill 2022 seeks to establish a fifth autonomous body under the nation's top regulator of medical education to administer the National Exit Test, a two-part exam that will serve as a prerequisite for granting doctors' registration as well as the basis for post-graduate admissions. Called the ‘Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences’, it will take over the functions of the National Board of Examinations that currently conducts the entrance tests for all post-graduation and super-speciality courses.

The screening test for foreign medical graduates is also administered by the National Board of Examinations; it will also be replaced by the new NExT test.

The new board will administer the NExT exams in addition to accrediting organisations for diploma, diplomat, postgraduate fellowship, and super-speciality fellowship programmes. It will establish the minimal requirements and grant them in order to run these courses.

The proposed law also declares that while the current National Board of Examinations will be abolished, all of its orders and accreditation would remain in effect until their expiration date. According to the draught bill, the officials will have the choice of being "subsumed under the NMC."

After the Undergraduate Medical Education Board, the Postgraduate Medical Education Board, the Medical Assessment and Rating Board, which inspects and rates medical education institutions, and the Ethics and Medical Registration Board, this will be the fifth autonomous board under the NMC (regulates professional conduct of the doctors and registers them).

A "Board of Counsellors or Counseling" should be established under NMC, according to Dr. Sunil Kumar, a former director general of health services. By making this change, admissions will be streamlined and expedited, and confusion that recently resulted in the loss of seats as a result of bad work ethics, a lack of coordination, and different organisations handling different aspects of the same task will be eliminated. Currently, the Medical Counselling Committee, which is separate from NMC, handles the counselling.

What are the Changes?

The new board under the National Medical Commission will subsume the role of independent National Board of Examinations, which many think will streamline the process. The government is planning to introduce NexT, a nationwide screening test for doctors before they are registered with the medical council, thus this comes at a time when the NMC's role is expanding.

No modifications to the National Testing Agency's administration of the undergraduate admission examination have been proposed in the new bill.

The government was petitioned by resident doctors' associations to establish such a body to speed up the procedure after multiple delays in administering the PG examinations for the years 2021 and 2022 were caused by the pandemic, legal proceedings, and other procedural delays.

The Federation of Resident Doctors' Association (FORDA) this year requested "an apex body controlling every aspect of medical education such that there are no discrepancies of decision-making between NMC, NBE, and MCC (Medical Counselling Committee that conducts the counselling after the qualifying tests), which has been the root cause of many procedural delays." This was part of a list of demands they had submitted to the union health minister.

Due to the pandemic and a number of court cases over the recently implemented quota for economically disadvantaged sections, counselling was frequently postponed in 2021. In February 2022, it finally began. Because there were staffing shortages at the medical college hospitals where the PG students work as junior residents, resident doctors had taken to the streets in December 2021 to demand that the counselling process be accelerated.

While the 2022 exams were held only a few days after the 2021 counselling concluded, this caused protests from students who attempted the exam a second time. However, the counselling process started again months later and there were a few delays due to procedural concerns.

The draught bill also suggests adding language to the parent act that would give the Delhi high court jurisdiction over any lawsuits filed by medical schools or other institutions against the commission. This is significant since the NMC's fee regulation decision for private medical colleges and deemed universities was initially contested in Kerala, where the institution won its case and the court ruled that the order would not be applicable there. The NMC's directive was to set fees for the remaining 50% of seats based on a predetermined set of criteria and cut rates for 50% of the seats to the levels of the state's government medical colleges.

The draught also provides that in cases of medical malpractice, patients and their families may appeal judgements of the state medical council to the Ethics and Medical Registration Board or the National Medical Commission.

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