NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has directed the Medical Commission to provide clinical training in medical colleges in India to medical students who have returned from countries such as China and Ukraine without having undergone final year clinical training. The court said that the scheme for this should be framed in two months.

A bench comprising Justices Hemant Gupta and V Ramasubramanian pointed out that giving professional registration to those who do not have undergone clinical training would affect the health of the citizens and the health sector as a whole. The Medical Commission should decide on the medical colleges, duration and cost of training. The court also said that NMC can conduct a test to determine the internship eligibility.

The Medical Commission had denied professional registration to an MBBS graduate student who had undergone clinical training online from a Chinese university. The apex court ruled on an appeal filed by the Medical Commission against the Madras High Court's quashing of this order.

The apex court was of the view that there was nothing wrong in denying the provisional registration as without practical training, there cannot be any Doctor who is expected to take care of the citizens of the country.

It directed the NMC "to frame a scheme as a one-time measure within two months to allow the student and such similarly situated students who have not actually completed clinical training to undergo clinical training in India in the medical colleges which may be identified by the appellant for a limited duration as may be specified by the appellant, on such charges which the appellant determines".

"It shall be open to the appellant to test the candidates in the scheme so framed in the manner within next one month, which it considers appropriate as to satisfy that such students are sufficiently trained to be provisionally registered to complete internship for 12 months," it added.