Over 50,000 to take test for admission to medical colleges next month

Islamabad

The University of Health Sciences has planned to conduct written test for admission to the government’s 17 medical and three dental education institutions in Punjab on August 20.

According to an official in the know, more than 50,000 boys and girls with higher secondary school certificate (pre-medical) are likely to sit for the test to be held in examination centres established in 14 cities, including central and northern Punjab, Bahawalpur, Multan, Rahim Yar Khan and Dera Ghazi Khan; in southern Punjab, Lahore, Faisalabad, Sahiwal, Gujrat, Sargodha, Gujranwala and Sialkot in central Punjab, and Rawalpindi and Hasanabdal in northern Punjab.

The test will be based on multiple-choice questions of biology, physics, chemistry and English, will last two and a half hours and will follow the rule of negative marking or penalty scoring i.e. the deduction of marks for incorrect answers.

The MDCAT test results will have 50 per cent weightage of the merit process, marks in the examination of FSc (pre-medical) or equivalent courses 40 per cent and those in the examination of matriculation or equivalent courses 10 per cent.

The successful candidates will be admitted to the first-year classes of the Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery (MBBS) in King Edward Medical University, Fatima Jinnah Medical University (for women), Allama Iqbal Medical College, Services Institute of Medical Sciences, Ameer-ud-Din Medical College and Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan Medical & Dental College, Nishtar Medical University, Faisalabad Medical University, Rawalpindi Medical University, Quaid-i-Azam Medical College, Sheikh Zayed Medical College, Sargodha Medical College, Nawaz Sharif Medical College, Gujranwala Medical College, Khawaja Muhammad Safdar Medical College, Sahiwal Medical College and Ghazi Khan Medical College, and for Bachelor of Dental Surgery (BDS); de’Montmorency College of Dentistry, Nishtar Institute of Dentistry and dental section of the Faisalabad Medical University.

The online submission of applications for test will take place from July 10 to July 28, the test on August 20 (Sunday), and the other relevant tests for the candidates, who had memorised the Holy Quran or lived with disability thereafter.

The UHS will issue the first list of successful candidates (MBBS and BDS) in all categories, including open merit, under-developed, disabled, Cholistan, overseas Pakistanis and dual nationality holders, on October 30, while the MBBS and BDS classes for the 2017-18 academic session will formally begin on November 13 and December 11, respectively. The official said it was mandatory for Punjab-domiciled candidates to appear in the test for admission to any public or private sector medical and dental institutions of the province.

The official said the candidates having domicile of any district of Punjab, Islamabad (ICT), Gilgit-Baltistan and foreign nationals can appear in MDCAT but under the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council regulations, they must have passed the FSc (pre-medical) or equivalent examination with at least 60 per cent marks.

He said those awaiting exam results could also apply. The official said the candidates for open merit seats could also opt for admission on 14 MBBS reciprocal seats available for Punjab-domiciled people in the medical colleges of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan but they required the aggregate mark percentage of less than 84 per cent.