ISLAMABAD, Jan 18: The Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) has modified equivalence examination to make it more comprehensive, target-oriented and purposeful by waiving the condition of passing the exams in four chances.

In an official statement, the PMDC had said after the modification, there was no restriction on number of attempts to pass the examination.

The council has a National Examination Board (NEB) since June 1991 which conducts equivalence examination for registration of basic medical qualification of foreign medical graduates. The equivalence examination for registration of basic medical qualification is conducted twice a year.

A spokesman for the council said the purpose of the examination was to assess medical knowledge and skill of the candidates having qualification from abroad whether it was comparable to the MBBS qualification from Pakistan or not. The examination comprised a theory part and a clinical part and on passing the theory papers, a candidate was allowed to appear in the clinical part.

So far, 534 candidates have passed the equivalence examination from December 1991 to October 2002. The candidates who have passed the examination had done their MBBS from countries like China, Afghanistan, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kirgyzstan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Philippines, Bangladesh, Belarus, Romania, Iran, India and Sri Lanka.

The spokesman said the council had an inbuilt system of periodical analysis and thorough evaluation of its procedures for the sake of improvement.

Accordingly, the system of examination was also reviewed in the light of observations, suggestions and comments from students and examiners over the past few years.

Now an intending candidate appearing in the next examination scheduled for March/April 2003, if clears the theory examination will be eligible to pass the clinical/viva examination in three attempts, without reappearing in the theory part, failing which he will have to pass the theory examination again.