ISLAMABAD: Not a single Pakistani medical graduate who studied medicine in Barbados, Cuba, Cyprus, the Dominican Republic, Georgia, the Philippines, Saint Lucia and Sudan managed to clear the National Registration Examination (NRE) Step-1 conducted in December 2025, official data released by the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) has revealed.
The results show that barely one in five foreign-trained doctors qualified nationwide, deepening concerns over the quality of medical education being offered in dozens of countries abroad.
According to official data, a total of 7,076 candidates appeared in NRE Step-1, of whom only 1,473 passed while 5,603 failed, putting the overall pass rate at 20.8 percent.
Regulators say the complete failure of candidates from eight countries is particularly troubling, as it points to systemic academic weaknesses rather than individual under performance.
The results also reveal extremely poor outcomes from several high-volume destinations that attract thousands of Pakistani students. Kyrgyzstan, which accounted for the largest number of candidates, recorded 951 passes out of 4,256, a pass rate of around 22 percent.
China recorded 333 passes out of 2,154 candidates, translating into a success rate of just 15.5 percent, one of the lowest among major source countries.
Other Central Asian countries showed similarly weak performance as Kazakhstan recorded 54 passes out of 174 candidates, a pass rate of about 31 percent, Uzbekistan had 35 passes out of 116 with 30 percent, while Tajikistan saw only 30 candidates pass out of 91, a success rate of roughly 33 percent.
Russia also performed poorly, with just two candidates passing out of 16.
Among South Asian and regional countries, Afghanistan recorded 18 passes out of 160 candidates, a success rate of just over 11 percent, while Ukraine saw only two candidates pass out of 14. Malaysia recorded one pass out of three candidates, while Belarus also had one pass out of three.
In contrast, a few countries with very small candidate numbers showed higher pass rates, though officials caution that these figures are statistically insignificant.
Bangladesh recorded 10 passes out of 11 candidates, Iran had 20 passes out of 39, while Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates reported 100 percent pass rates, with one to three candidates appearing from each country.
Officials at the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council say the overall pattern clearly indicates that the bulk of failures are concentrated in countries where large numbers of Pakistani students are enrolled, often through aggressive recruitment by admission agents and private colleges operating with limited regulatory oversight.
PMDC officials have warned that the situation could deteriorate further in NRE Step-2, which assesses clinical competence rather than theoretical knowledge, predicting that more than half of those who pass Step-1 may fail the next stage. They say many candidates already struggle with basic concepts, clinical reasoning and patient management.
The regulator has repeatedly described poorly trained foreign medical graduates as a “health security risk”, cautioning that allowing inadequately prepared doctors to enter Pakistan’s healthcare system could directly endanger patients, particularly in public hospitals already under severe pressure.
Officials also highlighted the economic dimension of the crisis, noting that Pakistani families spend hundreds of millions of US dollars every year on overseas medical education, draining valuable foreign exchange while often receiving training that fails to meet minimum professional standards. Health experts say the detailed NRE results should serve as a wake-up call for policymakers, parents and students, urging stricter monitoring of foreign medical institutions, stronger action against misleading admission agents, and uncompromising screening of graduates before they are allowed to practise medicine in Pakistan.
