Registered Medical Practitioners May be Able to Use Prefix 'Med Dr', NMC's Draft Guidelines Seek Feedback

Registered medical practitioners whose name feature either in the State Medical Register or National Medical Register or Indian Medical Register might soon be able to use prefix ‘Med Dr’. The medical practitioners are allied medical service providers such as chiropractors, osteopaths, naturopaths among others. As per the current practice only MBBS graduates are allowed to use prefix Dr and are called doctors. The rest of the practitioners of medical science might be called medicine doctors and allowed to use prefix ‘Med Dr’. This is a suggestion by the National Medical Commission (NMC).

The NMC has released the draft of the National Medical Commission Registered Medical Practitioner (Professional Conduct) Regulations, 2022 on its website. These rules have not been finalized yet and the NMC has invited feedback and comments from the general public, stakeholders, experts, and organisations from across the country. The comment should be sent via email at [email protected] by June 22.

The draft also includes direction on professional development programmes, prescribing general medicine, right to remuneration, prohibiting soliciting of patients and other issues. It states that while RMPs (except doctors in government service or emergencies) can refuse to continue to treat a patient in case their fees, as indicated previously, are not paid, they can abandon a patient. NMC has warned of strict action against offenders of the rules.

RMPs who have studied medicine overseas and are practising in India after clearing Foreign Medical Graduate Examination (FMGE)/National Exit Test (NEXT) have been directed to use only NMC approved prefixes and suffixes to provide clarity to the patients. The guidelines warn such RMPS to not claim to be a clinical specialists unless they have NMC recognised training and qualification

The National Medical Commission has cautioned that conviction of an Registered Medical Practitioner in case of cognisable offence can result in the suspension of practice license.

NMC, a regulatory body for medical education and medical professional in India, replaced the Medical Council of India (MCI) in September. The draft proposes to add ‘Med Dr’ as a prefix to these RPMs who are registered under the NMC Ac 2019 as a practitioner of modern medicine or Allopathy alone.

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