ISLAMABAD, Jul 16(ABC): Pakistan Medical Commission (PMC) on Saturday decided to start the admission of public medical colleges from October 17, 2022, concluding the entire process alongwith special seats by December 31, 2022.
The decision was made at the meeting of the National Admissions Scheduling Committee of the PMC with consensus which was held here to decide the admission schedule for 2022-23 for medical and dental colleges. It was also decided that admissions of all private medical colleges will be concluded by January 31, 2023.
Thereafter, admissions to public dental colleges will be concluded by February 14, 2023 and finally, admissions to private dental colleges will be concluded by February 28, 2023. Colleges and universities as per regulations are at liberty to initiate the application process at any time after May 2022.
The MDCAT exam result will be declared on October 7, 2022 with over 200,000 students across Pakistan and internationally registered to take the MDCAT exam. Students who gave the MDCAT exam in 2021 will also be able to use their 2021 results equivalenced to the 2022 MDCAT when applying for admissions. For admission to public colleges, each province or territory will determine the merit structure based on the student having qualified the MDCAT at 65% for admission to medical colleges and 55% for admission to dental colleges.
Private colleges and universities frame their individual merit criteria for admissions subject to again students have qualified for the MDCAT as per notified eligibility for medical and dental programs. As per regulations framed by the Medical and Dental Council, the National Admissions Scheduling Committee consists of a total of 11 members.
The Pakistan Medical Commission as part of continuing efforts to establish consensus-based benchmarks for medical and dental colleges earlier this year had framed regulations for forming the National Admission Scheduling Committee. The committee has a representation of all provinces representing the public colleges and representation of private medical and dental colleges.
Every private medical and dental college was requested to submit nominations. Two persons each receiving the highest number of nominations from medical colleges and dental colleges were notified to the committee. The PMC refuted the boycott rumors as baseless as it is the prerogative of the colleges to nominate representatives which they did and from amongst them, members were appointed to the Committee.
The misleading reports allegedly stated that the boycott was for the reason that Pakistan Association of Private Medical and Dental Institutions (PAMI) members wanted a three-week time between the close of public medical admission and private medical admissions and a two-week time between the close of public dental admission and private dental admissions, in that order.
The order of admissions for public and private colleges had already been notified by PMC as part of its admission policy and regulations earlier in the year and the committee in fact granted a time of four weeks between the close of public and private medical admissions and two-week time between public and private dental admissions, the PMC said.