MBBS (Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery)

MBBS stands for Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery. NMC's regulations describe the aim as a physician of first contact, trained in clinical and practical skills as well as theory, with attitude, ethics and communication. NMC sets its admission rules, curriculum and time limits, and every university that awards the degree follows them.^[1]

The National Medical Commission regulates medical education under the National Medical Commission Act, 2019. Its Graduate Medical Education Regulations, 2023 were published in the Gazette of India on 2 June 2023. A corrigendum of 16 June 2023 fixed the age rule at 17 on or before 31 December of the NEET year.

The regulations say an MBBS course should produce "a competent Physician of the first contact". NMC's Under Graduate Medical Education Board publishes the curriculum, and the National Testing Agency conducts NEET (UG).^[1]

Admission to every MBBS seat goes through common counselling on the NEET (UG) merit list, using the seat matrix NMC provides. A college that admits a student any other way can be fined ₹1 crore or the fee for the whole course, whichever is higher, per seat, and the student is discharged.^[1]

The NEET (UG) 2026 bulletin divides counselling between MCC and the states. The Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) of DGHS counsels for the 15% All India Quota seats and for AIIMS, JIPMER, the central universities and deemed universities. Each state counsels for its own quota and private college seats under its own notice.

If you sit NEET while your Class 12 result is awaited, you must have passed by the first round of counselling, or you can't be admitted that year.^[8]

The course starts with a two-week Foundation Course that orients you to medicine, communication and language skills. Phase I covers Anatomy, Physiology and Biochemistry. From Phase II you also do clinical postings on the wards, alongside Pathology, Pharmacology and Microbiology. Phase III takes 30 months and moves through the clinical subjects, with a month of electives in two 15-day blocks.

A family adoption programme runs through the course: each student adopts at least three families, and preferably five, in a village and follows them up. A university exam closes each professional year, with a supplementary exam within 6 to 8 weeks of the result. If you clear every exam on time, joining to the end of the internship takes 66 months, or 5½ years.^[3]

You get no more than four attempts to pass the Phase I exam, and Phase I must be done within four years. Sitting only the theory or only the practical of a subject counts as an attempt; missing both does not. If you fail the Phase I supplementary, you move to the junior batch. You can't start Phase II until you pass every Phase I subject.

A fail in Phase II or Phase III Part I lets you carry on with the next phase's training, but not sit its university exam until you clear the backlog. GMER-23 stops anyone continuing the course more than nine years after admission, and the CBME 2024 guidelines say you must graduate, internship included, within ten years of joining.^[3]

NMC's Compulsory Rotating Medical Internship Regulations, 2021 make the internship part of the degree. It lasts at least 12 months, it is done in the institution where you studied MBBS, and it must be finished within two years of passing the final exam. You get at most 15 days of leave in the year; more leave extends the internship.

No medical graduate gets permanent registration to practise in India without this internship. The regulations name NExT Step 1 as the qualifying exam once it is in force; NMC deferred NExT on 13 July 2023, so for now the final MBBS exam of your university is the qualifying exam.^[4]

GMER-23 says no one can study medicine in India or elsewhere, and come back to practise in India, without the minimum NEET (UG) score. NMC's Foreign Medical Graduate Licentiate Regulations, 2021 add more conditions: a course of at least 54 months taught in English, a 12-month internship in the same foreign institution, a licence to practise in that country, then 12 months of supervised internship in India and NMC's licensing test.

The whole foreign course has to be finished within ten years of joining, and no part of it can be done in India or a third country.^[7]

The internship is the closest look at the work. In the community medicine posting, NMC's internship regulations list what an intern must handle on their own:

• At a district hospital or community health centre, diagnose common ailments and advise primary care.
• Know the essential drugs and how they are used.
• Recognise medical emergencies, resuscitate, start treatment and refer the patient on.
• At a primary health centre, keep the immunisation and cold-chain records.
• Diagnose and manage common illnesses such as malaria, tuberculosis, enteric fever and hepatitis.

Source^[4]

The internship is the condition for permanent registration to practise in India; after it you can work or go on to postgraduate study. Under NMC's Post-Graduate Medical Education Regulations, 2023, broad-speciality MD and MS courses run three years (two if you already hold a postgraduate diploma in the same subject), and they include a compulsory three-month District Residency Programme in district hospitals.

Admission to MD and MS goes through NEET-PG until the first batch based on NExT becomes eligible. Super-speciality DM and MCh courses follow, through NEET-SS. Government doctor posts are filled through recruitment notices; we don't show pay figures until we can cite a current notice.^[5]