Career Options After Clearing FMGE

If you are considering moving outside of India to do your MBBS, one thing you must be concerned about is the Medical Council of India Screening Test, or as it is commonly known, Foreign Medical Graduates Examination (FMGE). Another misconception prevalent amongst most of our nation’s population is that students do not have many career options in India other than Clinical Practices and Teaching after completing their MBBS from Abroad. Unfortunately, these two do not sound very appealing to most foreign medical graduates.

This perception is false in the truest sense of the word, as there are so many other lucrative options available these days that an MBBS graduate can opt for as a career. Medicine, as a field, is no more unidimensional; it is as vast as any other field. Recent day MBBS graduate is flooded with a plethora of options to choose from according to their interests. But before you can turn to any of those, you need to clear your FMGE exam and complete your 1-year clinical internship to become eligible to work in India. The attempt is to familiarize you with the top and most lucrative career paths available for a student after clearing FMGE.

 

MD, MS, or Diploma

It only makes sense that we begin the discussions with the path most students choose after their graduation. MD, MS, and diploma are postgraduation which is a dream of most students doing MBBS. MD, MS, and diploma are in themselves umbrella fields; you can choose the specialization you would like to obtain your postgraduation degree in; you are given an ocean of specializations to choose from, some of them are: General Surgery, Anaesthesiology, Obstetrics & Gynaecology, Ophthalmology, Orthopaedics, Dermatology, Traumatology & Surgery, Neurosurgery, and Paediatrics.

 

Diplomate of National Board (DNB)

DNB is undoubtedly the second most famous option amongst medical students in India. Diplomate of National Board (DNB) is a medical qualification is approved by the Government of India and is awarded by the National Board of Examinations (NBE). It is considered equivalent to the postgraduate and post-doctoral programs, i.e., MD and MS, offered by the medical colleges in India. After DNB, candidates have many opportunities to become experts in various medical fields, like paediatricians, anesthesiologists, general practitioners, and super-experts, such as nephrologists, orthopaedic doctors, cardiologists, neurologists, etc.

 

Civil Services

This may shock most people, but MBBS graduates are eligible for civil services in India. Candidates can join IRS or IAS or IFS or IPS post MBBS; UPSC conducts the exam, and it is conducted every year. It is a great career option as civil services are the most honourable services in India. You can completely cut cords with your clinical roots and opt for a purely administrative job. The candidate gets quite many benefits provided by the Government of India, along with a decent salary and low workload.

 

Combined Medical Services (CMS)

This is another exam for a government job also conducted by the board of civil services, UPSC. With this job, you get to live your dreams of having a career in the clinical field and the administrative field. Instead of being a purely administrative job, it is a clinical + administrative job. It is ideal for candidates who wish to enter Government institutions like Railways and Municipal Corporations as Medical Officers. It is a permanent job with quite many benefits provided by the Government of India and a decent salary and low workload.

 

MBA

Doctors in the corporate world sound like a piece of fake news, but it is as real as it gets, and their demand is on the rise with each passing second. Multiple companies need doctors because such is the structure of their business model, like pharmaceutical companies. Other organizations need a doctor available on site because it is mandated by the government, like construction sites or airlines. And these companies prefer doctors with an MBA degree. As a result, there are many colleges that offer MBA to MBBS graduates and have seen a huge wave of medical student enrolment. Some examples of these colleges are FMS Delhi, IIM’s, MDI Gurgaon IBS Hyderabad, and XLRI Jamshedpur. Enrolment into these universities is based on the merit list of CAT, which is conducted every year.

 

Clinical Research

This is one of the options that pays very well and has immense demand in India and abroad, but very few people opt for it. Many institutes like ICMR (Indian Council for Medical Research), CCMB (Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology), CIMAP, and St. John’s Research Institute offer research opportunities. If you can work hard and be good enough, you may land a job in WHO and maybe aim for the position of the WHO chief in the future. Many universities in India offer Ph.D. degrees, and these universities are PGI, AIIMS, NIMHANS, and Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR).

 

Master’s in technology in Biomedical Engineering and Biological Sciences.

Another option available for medical graduates who do not want to continue with clinical life is and have an interest in technology and what technology can achieve in biosciences is to get a degree in M.Tech. Master’s in technology in biomedical engineering and biological sciences is a course offered by IIT developing medical machines, inventing medical machines and instruments for providing better health care.

 

Master’s in health administration (MHA).

One of the more famous but less talked about options is MHA. MHA enables medical students to acquire all the skills required to successfully run and maintain a high-end hospital, clinic, and insurance company; MHA is a 3-year postgraduate degree that can land you a high-paying job to administer and manage big hospitals, clinics, and insurance companies.

This article gives you a basic idea of what options you have after finishing your MBBS, whether you want to go into clinical practice or not. Some of these options might of interest to you, and others might not be. So, you should get on the internet and do your own in-depth research about whatever field intrigues you and pursue it