NExT Vs NEET PG

As per the NMC Bill, it is clearly indicated that by 2022, the National Exit Test or NEXT will be a mandatory exam for obtaining a license to practice medicine in India. It will empower the MBBS as well as foreign medical graduates to practice medicine in India. Upon completion of the MBBS course, every medical student must undergo NExT exam to get the license to practice medicine in India. This Exit test for MBBS will also be treated as the Post Graduation Entrance exam to get admission into PG medical courses in India, thereby replacing NEET PG Exam.  

NExT 2022 should not hinder you from preparing for NEET-PG, unless you are from 2017 batch and beyond. But if you are one of those who will facing NExT NEET PG, then this article is for you. With this post, we will try to highlight all the important differences between NEXT and NEET PG, and help you face this MBBS exit test with full fledge. 

A Whole New Exam Pattern 

Unlike NEET PG, which was a single one-day objective exam comprising of 300 questions, the National Exit Test for MBBS will be conducted in two parts. NExT-1 will be an All India Concurrent MCQ-based exam and NExT-2 will be a practical exam. NExT Part –1 will have a total of 540 MCQs and will be conducted for 3 days and over 14.5 hours. 3 hours will be dedicated to Pre-Lunch Papers and 1.5 hours for Post-Lunch ones. The number of items for Pre-Lunch and Post-Lunch NExT Papers is 120 and 60 respectively.

Biggest Change – Syllabus 

Proposed syllabus of National Exit Test by NMC puzzled many students. The number of subjects mentioned were almost half. 

It included final year subjects and eliminated first and second-year subjects. Though the guidelines also mentioned that about 10% of questions of each stream will focus on the basic sciences and 10% of the questions will be on Preventive & Public Health. The proposed bill has also mentioned that NExT will check your clinical skills, in and out. This MBBS exit exam will integrate pre-clinical, clinical, and para-clinical learnings which clearly indicated that you don’t need to leave any subject behind. 

Approximate Content Split of NExT is:- 

• 60% Problem Solving  
• 30% Comprehension and Analysis  
• 10% Recall 

What’s new in Eligibility Criteria 

Prior to NExT Exit test, PG exam is supposed to be held after your internship. But now, final year MBBS students can appear in part one of NEXT. This, in turn, will reduce the preparation time period that aspirants used to have in NEET PG.  

As per the latest proposal, students also need to clear NExT-2 i.e. second part of National Exit Test to get admission into the desired PG medical course and to practice medicine in India. In order to appear in this part two, students need to clear the the NExT-1. Any MBBS graduate will be able to pursue the PG course only after clearing both the parts. This will also serve as a licentiate exam for MBBS or foreign medical graduates to practice medicine in India.  

If there are still any doubts left, clarify them with the help of below flowchart. 

The Additional Practical Exam 

The NMC had made it very clear that the NExT Exit Test will focus on producing more skillful doctors and limit illegal practices in the medical field. But how can that be done? Will an objective exam with clinically oriented and application-based MCQs be sufficient to test that? Apart from the MCQ based exam, NMC also proposed a practical exam to thoroughly gauge the clinical skills of a PG aspirant. This exam is none other than NExT Part – 2 which will happen after the post-final year internship. This will be a pass/fail conducted by the respective college/university which to check the practical efficacy of these graduates.  

The Risk Factor 

Unlike NEET PG, stakes are pretty high when you appear in NExT. If you would have failed to clear NEET PG exam, you couldn’t get the seat of your choice for the PG medical course. But this didn’t stop you from practicing medicine in India. The scenario is bit different in the case of the NExT MBBS Exit Exam. In case, you fail to clear any of the parts of the National Exit Test, you cannot qualify for the seat of your choice for your PG medical course. Moreover, without qualifying this MBBS exit exam, you will not be considered eligible to practice medicine in India even if you are an MBBS graduate. 

Which one is better – NExT or NEET PG 

National Exit Test for MBBS has no significant disadvantage over NEET-PG as the pattern aims to improve the quality of doctors in India with a more practical and clinical-based approach. Many illegal practices by unqualified doctors would be limited with this new licentiate exam for MBBS. 

We hope that the above article would have rectified all your doubts regarding NExT and NEET PG. You can also get answers to some FAQs regarding NExT Exit Exam from our other blogs. And if there is still any doubt left, feel free to share the same in our comments section.