ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Medical Commission (PMC) President Prof Dr Noshad Ahmad Shaikh on Monday said Medical and Dental Colleges Admission Test (MDCAT) would be held on November 13 throughout the country.

Speaking at a press conference, Dr Shaikh said 210,000 candidates had applied for MDCAT for 20,800 seats in medical and dental colleges.

He said after appointment by the prime minister, the new nine-member PMC council assumed the charge on Sept 7 and took a number of steps to resolve genuine and relevant issues of doctors, students and relevant stakeholders.

He said Bolan University of Medical and Health Sciences will hold the test in Balochistan, University of Health Services in Punjab, Khyber Medical University in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Dow University of Health Sciences in Sindh and Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Medical University will hold the exam for the students of Islamabad, Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan.

Varsities in provinces to decide whether to conduct MDCAT themselves or through testing agency, says PMC

“All vice chancellors of the public universities and concerned stakeholders were taken on board to decide the conduct of MDCAT through meetings in every province. The universities will decide on the modalities of conducting the exam i.e. either by themselves or through a testing agency,” he said.

He said the National University of Medical Sciences (Nums) will hold the test for its constituent and affiliated medical and dental colleges. Nums’ MDCAT would be under the umbrella of PMC and shall only be valid for admission to Nums’ constituent and affiliated colleges.

The PMC president said the pass percentage in MDCAT for admission to MBBS will be 55pc and for BDS 45pc. Moreover, students with FSc (pre-medical) or equivalent with 60pc marks will be eligible to apply for admission to the colleges.

“MDCAT will be paper based manual exam and the answer keys of the papers will be uploaded by the concerned universities on the PMC website the same day after the exam,” he said.

Dr Noshad said in Punjab the centres for MDCAT would be established in Lahore, Gujranwala, Sialkot, Faisalabad, Sahiwal, Multan, Bahawalpur and Dera Ghazi Khan while in Sindh the centres would be in Karachi, Hyderabad, Nawabshah and Khairpur. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Abbottabad, Peshawar, Swat and Dera Ismail Khan would have centres while in Balochistan MDCAT centre would be in Quetta.

In Gilgit-Baltistan, the centre will be established in Gilgit and in Mirpur and Muzaffarabad in Azad Kashmir. A centre will also be set up in Islamabad.

He also said the council had decided to conduct MDCAT in UAE and Saudi Arabia due to the maximum number of students in these countries. Candidates in other countries may either change their centres to UAE and Saudi Arabia or come to Pakistan for the exam.

He said the council had also decided that the National Licensing Exam (NLE) exam for local students shall be conducted through their degree-awarding universities under the umbrella of PMC. Pass percentage for NLE 1 and NLE 2 has been reduced from 70 to 50 but it would not be used as a retrospective.

Talking about the World Federation for Medical Education (WFME), he said the PMC had qualified the eligibility for it.

“A task force has been constituted to sum up the work that has been done so far along with proposed steps for the WFME accreditation. The task force will expedite the finalisation of the accreditation application to be submitted to the WFME before the deadline of 2024 fixed by Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates (ECFMG).

The council has decided that inspection of medical and dental colleges shall be carried out by the PMC, he said.

Dr Noshad said renewal of doctors’ registration certificates had been extended from two years to five years.

“Senior doctors who are 60 years and above shall renew their registration certificate and will have to pay 50pc of the total fee,” he added.

Published in Dawn, October 11th, 2022