ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Medical Commission (PMC) has decided that admissions to all public medical colleges shall begin on October 17 and conclude by December 31, including on all special seats. The admission to private medical colleges shall be concluded by January 31, 2023.

Moreover, admissions to public dental colleges shall be concluded by February 14 and to private dental colleges by February 28.

Colleges and universities as per regulations are at liberty to initiate the application process at any time after May 2023. The result of over 200,000 students registered across Pakistan and internationally for MDCAT will be declared on October 7.

According to a statement, students who gave the MDCAT exam last year will also be able to use their 2021 results equivalence to 2022 MDCAT when applying for admissions.

For admission to public colleges, each province or territory shall determine the merit structure based on the students having qualified the MDCAT at 65pc for admission to medical colleges and 55pc for admission to dental colleges. Private colleges/universities frame their individual merit criteria for admissions subject to again students having qualified the MDCAT as per notified eligibility for medical and dental programmes.

As per regulations framed by the Medical and Dental Council, the national admissions scheduling committee consisted of 11 members.

The members are: Dr Allah Rakha (Punjab-UHS), Prof Jawad Ahmed (KP-KMU), Prof Riaz Ahmed Shaikh (Sindh), Prof Dr Zahir Khan Mandokhail (Balochistan admission committee), Prof Mulazim Hussain Bukhari (AJK admission committee), Prof Moosa Khan (federal capital territory-SZAMBU), Brig Azhar Shams (Nums), Prof Dr Abdul Rasheed Mian and Ghulam Noorani (nominees of the private medical colleges) and Dr Ali Farhan and Dr Mohammad Rizwan Saghir Chatha (nominees of the private dental colleges).

The PMC said as part of its continuing efforts to establish consensus based benchmarks for medical and dental colleges earlier this year had framed regulations for forming the national admission scheduling committee. The committee has representation of all provinces.

Every private medical and dental college was requested to submit nominations. Two persons each receiving the highest number of nominations from medical colleges and dental colleges were notified to the committee.

“While rumours about a boycott appeared in some press reports on Friday attributed to Pami, the PMC refutes the rumours as it was prerogative of the colleges to nominate representatives which they did and from among them members were appointed to the committee,” the statement said.

Published in Dawn, July 17th, 2022