CONTENTS

Registration requirements Medical certificate Medical experience English proficiency Fitness to practice Medical standing Recent activities Application cost

CONTENTS

Registration requirements Medical certificate Medical experience English proficiency Fitness to practice Medical standing Recent activities Application cost

GMC REGISTRATION

In order to practice medicine in the United Kingdom, you need to register with the General Medical Council (GMC). The registration is a relatively quick process that happens entirely online. You will need to set up a GMC online account here where you can then upload your documents.

REQUIREMENTS FOR GMC REGISTRATION

EVIDENCE OF PRIMARY MEDICAL QUALIFICATION

The evidence of primary medical qualification is your MBBS or MBChB certificate. The GMC will need this to be verified before they can accept your certificate. The verification process is handled by a non-profit third party organization called Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates (ECFMG). The ECFMG is a United States based organization that carries out this verification via their online verification portal called the Electronic Portfolio of International Credentials (EPIC). Below is a summary of the steps to verifying your medical certificate with ECFMG:

  1. Set up an online EPIC account - ECFMG will need to confirm your identity to do this. Here’s a link to set up your EPIC account. The cost of establishing an EPIC account and confirming your identity is 130 USD. To confirm your identity, ECFMG uses the NotaryCam; an online notary service. You will be required to do a video call with a agent to confirm your identity. More information on this here.
  2. Upload your medical certificate on the EPIC website. During the process of uploading your medical certificate, you will have an opportunity to choose the recipient of the verification report, choose the GMC to receive the report.
  3. ECFMG will assess your qualifications and communicate with your medical institution directly to confirm the authenticity of your certificate. Once the certificate has been verified, ECFMG will confirm this to the GMC. Verification costs $100 per certificate.
  4. Submit your GMC registration application to the GMC. You will require your EPIC ID (this would have been issued to you by ECFMG at the time of establishing your EPIC account).

PROOF OF INTERNSHIP OR EXPERIENCE

The GMC accepts doctors with or without housemanship/internship for GMC registration for a medical license. There are two separate pathways depending on whether you have competed an internship or not.

Doctors who have completed internship
You must have completed an internship/housemaship lasting a minimum of 12 continuous months in a public hospital.

Your internship/housemanship must have included one of the following:

You will need a letter from the hospital or your MDCN posting forms detailing the dates and specialties of your practice.

Doctors who have not completed internship
For doctors who haven’t completed a formal internship or housemanship, the GMC will accept evidence of continuous practice for 2 years after graduating.

They will check that your experience:

You will need a letter from the hospital on the letter headed paper detailing dates and specialties of your practice.

PROOF OF KNOWLEDGE OF ENGLISH

This is your IELTS or OET certificate. See section on IELTS here. You need to meet GMCs minimum scores in either exams within the last 2 years of applying for GMC registration.

Using IELTS, you are required to score a minimum of 7.0 in each area ( speaking, listening, reading and writing) and a minimum of 7.5 overall. In addition, your certificate must not be more than 2 years old.

For the OET, you will require at least a grade ‘B’ in all areas including writing, listening, reading and speaking. The validity is the same as IELTS and must be valid at the time of application for GMC registration.

The GMC can accept primary medical qualification as proof of English knowledge from some institutions. Certificates from most universities in Nigeria are not accepted as proof of English knowledge. The GMC has a comprehensive list of institutions from which it does not accept primary medical qualification as proof of English proficiency. See list here.

FITNESS TO PRACTICE

During your application you will need to answer 9 questions about your health and fitness to practice. You are required to declare:

GOOD MEDICAL STANDING

To confirm your fitness to practice, you will need to submit a certificate of good standing. You can apply for this on the MDCN website which at the timing of publishing this costs 390,000 Naira.

YOUR ACTIVITIES FOR THE LAST 5 YEARS

You’ll need to provide details of your medical and non-medical experience for the last 5 years.

Examples of other activities include:

This is basically to track your activities over the prior 5 years to applying for your GMC certificate.

COST OF APPLICATION

The registration fee for full registration with a license to practice is £463. See the GMC fees page for more details including annual retention fees.