02-07-2025
From The Hindu, July 3, 1975: 60 p.c. of Foreign Doctors fail in tests by council
London, July 2: Sixty percent of the foreign doctors who took Britain's first tests in English and clinical knowledge have failed, the General Medical Council (GMC) announced yesterday.
Dr. Abdul Sayeed, Chairman of the Overseas Doctors Association, criticised the examinations and said he was not surprised that so many candidates had failed.
Only 27 out of 68 doctors passed the two-day tests held in Edinburgh last week. Dr. Sayeed remarked, 'The question paper was such that many doctors could not understand it.'
The candidates came from 70 countries whose citizens are eligible for the tests.
Doctors from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the West Indies are not required to sit for the examinations because their degrees are recognised in the UK. However, this year's graduates from India, Pakistan, and non-Commonwealth nations must undergo the tests.
The two-day assessments evaluated an applicant's ability to understand colloquial expressions that might arise in a doctor's office, in addition to testing their clinical knowledge.
Dr. Sayeed commented, 'On the multiple-choice question, many doctors spent 20 minutes deciphering it because it was very bizarre and badly produced.'
They were asked how they would cope with a pregnant woman with an infectious disease who had been in a road crash, and what they would tell the woman's mother-in-law. 'It is not the sort of situation that a medical practitioner is likely to encounter very often,' Dr. Sayeed said.
'All these put together in one question was a bit too much. The doctors were not expecting that type of question.'
