KEY POINTS
- PMDC data reveals 20.8% pass rate for foreign degree holder doctors.
- Foreign Doctors Association demands transparency and warns of protests.
- Regulators call substandard graduates “health security risk”.
ISLAMABAD: Official data released by the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) shows that no Pakistani medical graduate from eight countries passed the National Registration Examination (NRE) Step-1 held in December 2025.
The results highlight serious concerns over the quality of overseas medical education and its implications for Pakistan’s healthcare system.
This also underscores a deepening crisis in the standards of foreign medical training pursued by thousands of Pakistani students.
The exam results paint a bleak picture, with only one in five foreign-trained doctors passing the crucial licensing test.
Out of 7,076 candidates, a mere 1,473 succeeded, resulting in an overall pass rate of just 20.8 percent.
Regulators have expressed particular concern over the failure of graduates from Barbados, Cuba, Cyprus, the Dominican Republic, Georgia, the Philippines, Saint Lucia, and Sudan.
High-volume destinations, low success rates
The data highlights extremely poor outcomes from countries that are major destinations for Pakistani medical aspirants.
In Kyrgyzstan, which sent the largest cohort of 4,256 candidates, only 951 passed, at 22 percent success rate.
China performed even worse, with just 333 passes out of 2,154 candidates, a pass rate of 15.5 percent.
Other popular Central Asian nations like Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan recorded pass rates between 30 and 33 percent.
Russia saw only two passes from 16 candidates.
‘Health security risk’
PMDC officials have long described poorly trained foreign graduates as a “health security risk,” warning that allowing them into Pakistan’s healthcare system could endanger patients.
They caution that the situation may worsen in NRE Step-2, which tests clinical skills, predicting that over half of those who cleared Step-1 might fail the next stage.
Many candidates reportedly lack basic clinical reasoning and patient management abilities.
Economic drain and policy wake-up call
The crisis also carries a high economic cost, with Pakistani families spending hundreds of millions of dollars annually on substandard overseas education.
Health experts urge immediate policy action, including stricter monitoring of foreign medical colleges, crackdowns on misleading admission agents, and uncompromising screening of graduates before they are allowed to practice in Pakistan.
The results, they say, must serve as a critical warning to students, parents, and policymakers alike.
Medical graduates demand PMDC reforms
Later, the Pakistan Foreign Doctors Medical Graduates Association (PFDMGA) presented several demands to the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC), calling for transparency in examination procedures and the reversal of policies they claim are unjustly barring hundreds from practice.
The group threatened large-scale protests if their concerns are not addressed within a week.
Foreign doctors association calls for audit
During a press conference at the National Press Club, association leaders, including President Dr. Tahir Khan Sikandari, challenged the validity of recent National Registration Examination (NRE) results.
Dr. Sikandari claimed that out of 7,300 candidates who appeared for the NRE, only 200 were declared passed, a figure starkly lower than the PMDC’s officially reported data.
He alleged a lack of transparency, stating that even answer sheet copies were not provided to students, preventing them from understanding their performance.
The association’s demands include implementing internationally recognized exam standards, restoring universities delisted by the PMDC but recognized by the World Directory of Medical Schools (WDOMS), and withdrawing policies that have prevented doctors, including graduates from Afghan universities, from sitting the NRE-2 exam.
They also called for action against PMDC President Dr. Rizwan Taj and demanded the public release of detailed marks for all candidates.
Provisional registration
A key demand was the issuance of provisional registration to foreign graduates, allowing them to begin mandatory house jobs while they attempt to clear the NRE.
The doctors warned that if their issues are not resolved in seven days, they will stage a protest outside the PMDC headquarters in Islamabad, led by Young Doctors Association Punjab President Dr. Shoaib Niazi.
They also appealed directly to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif for intervention.
PMDC defends process
In a detailed rebuttal, the PMDC defended the integrity of the examination process.
The council stated that the National University of Medical Sciences (NUMS) in Rawalpindi has been exclusively entrusted with conducting the NRE for the past two years to ensure “credibility, integrity, and transparency.”
The PMDC clarified that it has no direct role in paper setting, exam conduct, or result preparation, distancing itself from the academic execution of the tests.
It emphasised that the NRE is held at least twice a year based on a publicly available syllabus aligned with Pakistan’s MBBS curriculum, with a passing criterion of 60% and no negative marking.
The council noted that detailed marks are available through its official online portal and that for the December 2025 NRE Step-1, only two candidates applied for re-totalling.
It firmly rejected all allegations of discrimination or opacity, stating procedures are “robustly and transparently” conducted in line with national and international best practices.
The PMDC reaffirmed that the NRE is a mandatory parliamentary requirement to standardize medical practice quality in Pakistan.
