AP:Foreign medical students from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana find returning home difficult

Hyderabad:Students from Telangana and Andhra Pradesh who go abroad to pursue medicine find it difficult to return to their homeland due to their inability to clear the FMGE( Foreign Medical Graduates Examination). This is a compulsory screening test, conducted by the MCI for induction, on their return with foreign medical degrees.

"The lesser percentage is an indication of the education standards, particular in the former Soviet bloc, where English is not the main language. Also, a majority of students going there are the ones who did not get study opportunities in India. Hence, it is proving to be a huge task for them to be at par with the standard of medical education taught here," MCI member K. Ramesh Reddy said.

Students going abroad for medical study prefer Ukraine, Russia, Georgia, Belarus, Armenia, Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, China, Philippines, Nepal and Bangladesh, said T. Krishna Prasad, an overseas education consultant, said Telugu students mostly prefer the Philippines, China, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

This year, over 2,000 students from Telangana and Andhra Pradesh will be heading for study of medicine abroad, he said.

According to N.S. Murthy, Telangana Medical Council, FMGE came into effect in 2002 and it is a must for students, graduating from countries besides the US, the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.