NMC Guidelines: No MBBS beyond Aug 30; NExT in December, January every year

The National Medical Commission (NMC) has issued a notice urging institutions across the country to establish an admission procedure that allows the commencement of the first-year MBBS program on August 1 each year. In addition, the NMC has mandated that institutions refrain from registering any candidates after August 30. The NMC has emphasized that medical degrees awarded to students admitted after the specified closing deadline (August 30) will not be recognized by the NMC.

According to a notice published on June 12, these new guidelines will apply to all admissions in the MBBS Course in medical colleges for the academic year 2023-24. The guidelines, known as the Graduate Medical Education Regulation (GMER-23) regulations, have been released and uploaded on the official website of the NMC at nmc.org.in.

Under the GMER-23 guidelines, the first-year courses for new MBBS candidates will commence on August 1, 2023. The guidelines also state that there will be a common counseling process for admission to graduate programs in all medical institutions/colleges nationwide, based on the merit list of the NEET UG result.

Furthermore, the guidelines specify that the Third Professional Part II examination or National Exit Test (NExT) examination will be conducted at the end of the 17th or 18th month of training in subjects such as General Medicine, General Surgery, Ophthalmology, Otorhinolaryngology, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Pediatrics, and allied subjects, as per the NExT regulations. MBBS students from the 2023-23 batch will sit for the NExT examination in December 2027 or January 2028, according to the academic calendar issued by UGMEB in the guidelines document. The NExT examination will be conducted in December or January every year.

Regarding the MBBS curriculum, the program will be divided into three stages. The first and second stages will each last for 12 months, while the third stage will be 30 months long. The third stage will be further divided into two parts: Part I (12 months) and Part II (18 months).

The duration of the MBBS course will require a minimum of eight hours of work per day, including one hour of lunch, for each of the 39 weeks, which will be considered an academic year. In the second year, students will be required to undertake a total of 15 hours per week of clinical work.

In terms of examinations, students must have a minimum attendance of 75% in theory and 80% in practical or clinical sessions in order to be eligible to appear for the exams in each subject. Students who fail to meet the minimum attendance requirements in the electives will not be allowed to sit for the Third Professional Part II exam or the National Exit Test (NExT) exam. Additionally, candidates who fail the university exams at the end of each academic year will have to appear in the supplementary exams.