LAHORE, June 8: Certain amendments have been proposed to the Pakistan Registration of Medical and Dental Practitioners Regulations 2008 pertaining to foreign qualification and the National Examination Board (NEB) with main focus on ‘examination structure’.

The amendments have been proposed by the national examination committee of the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC). An official informed Dawn on Sunday that the committee had submitted the draft proposal to the council for approval.

The committee suggests the candidates who have obtained their basic medical\dental education from the institutions where medium of instruction is not English, will be required to submit original copy of IELTS 6.0 score and an equivalent in TOFEL test result for issuance of eligibility certificate.

“In case a candidate does not fulfill any of the criteria, the registrar of the council may reject his or her application for issue of eligibility certificate\NOC or prohibit the applicant from sitting in the examinations, giving reasons thereof, and the applicant, if not satisfied, may appeal against the decision to the committee comprising the NEB chairman and two members. The committee shall hear the appeal and decide the matter on behalf of the council and its decision shall be final,” the body suggests.

It further proposes that a candidate who has acquired admission after 2007 in a foreign medical institution with less than 60 per cent marks in FSc premedical or an equivalent qualification shall not be entertained for NEB examination under any circumstances.

The registration examination shall be conducted twice a year as per NEB schedule.

The examination format for foreign medical and dental graduates with basic qualification will be decided by the NEB and communicated to the candidates at the time of issuance of eligibility certificates. The committee has mainly proposed new format of examination for such candidates. Under the proposal, there should be two portions of the examination - theory and clinical. The Paper-I of theory relates to MCQ (three-hour duration) having 150 marks and Paper-II to SCQ’s (three hours) with 125 marks. The pass marks for both papers will be 138 out of total 275.