Practical difficulties: Forced home from China by Covid, medical grads in a limbo

Practical difficulties: Forced home from China by Covid, medical grads in a limbo

Shradha.Chettri@timesgroup.com

New Delhi : Surya G from Tamil Nadu finished his studies at North Sichuan Medical University in China in 2020. As Covid19 spread, other students and he were brought back. His studies continued online, but without practicals and internship. He has not been able to return due to the Chinese government’s “Zero Covid policy”.

 Though he cleared the Foreign Medical Graduate Examination (FMGE), he has been sitting idle at home. Like him, close to 23,000 students who had joined Chinese medical colleges in 2016, 2017 and 2018 are a worried lot. Demanding that the Indian government make arrangements for such students to conduct their practical/internships, they staged a protest at Jantar Mantar on Sunday. Earlier, too, such students from across the country made several  representations. As their problems were not addressed, they held a protest and hunger strike. “The only thing we are asking for is to make arrangements for our practicals. How can we become doctors without performing practicals or doing internships?” asked Surya. In China, medical studies are of almost six years — five years of study and one year of internship. A large number of students go there as medical studies are cheap. Shashank Srivastava, a 2018 joining batch at Nanjing Medical University, has already missed 2. 5 years of practicals.

“We have not attended even one surgery or pathology class and missed almost 2. 5 years of practicals. Our clinical starts in the third year and we have already missed it,” said the Delhi-based student. The fees at his university is Rs 3. 4 lakh per annum. “Several students also get scholarships upon performing well,” he added. Wearing white coats and carrying stethoscopes, the students protested in the sweltering heat. There were a large number of students from the Northeast and Kerala too. Holding banners of “China FMG students wants justice”, the protest was organised by All India Association of Foreign Medical Students and Parents.

Barani, a fourth-year student of Dali Medical University, said, “In our course, one-third of the studying is practical, which means if everything was normal, we would have been spending 3-4 days in labs. National Medical Commission had allowed online classes due to the pandemic, but they said practical and clinical training was essential once the colleges or universities reopened. Our university cannot do anything because of the Chinese government’s policies.