Licensing and entry exams for Bangladesh's doctors, nurses and pharmacists

Medical and health education in Bangladesh

The MBBS takes five years, followed by a compulsory one-year internship. Students are admitted through a centralised government admission test. Bangladesh has well over 100 medical colleges, a roughly even mix of government and private, affiliated to public universities. The Bangladesh Medical and Dental Council (BMDC) recognises them and keeps the register. Teaching is in English.

BMDC grants provisional registration after the MBBS, which is enough to enter internship, and full registration after the internship is completed. Bangladeshi graduates do not sit a general licensing exam. Postgraduate entry is competitive and runs through the Bangladesh College of Physicians and Surgeons (BCPS) FCPS Part I, or university degrees such as MD and MS.

Nursing is either a three-year diploma or a four-year B.Sc., overseen by the Bangladesh Nursing and Midwifery Council. Pharmacy is a four-year B.Pharm, with practice rules set under the Pharmacy Ordinance 1976. Dentistry is a five-year BDS with a one-year internship. Check BMDC for the current admission and intake figures.

Ask a Bangladeshi house officer which exam defines their career and the answer is rarely a licensing test. It is FCPS Part I, or the residency admission test for MD and MS seats. Licensing, for local graduates, is a matter of paperwork. The real examination pressure sits in two places: nursing and midwifery, where a council exam is required, and postgraduate entry.

Who needs a licensing exam in Bangladesh

• Bangladeshi MBBS graduates: provisional registration with BM&DC, then full registration after internship. Documents include the degree, internship certificate, national ID and e-TIN. No exam.
• Doctors and dentists with degrees from non-recognised foreign institutions: must pass the BM&DC Registration Qualifying Examination (RQE).
• Local BDS graduates: registration by qualification plus internship.
• Nurses and midwives: must pass the BNMC Comprehensive Licensing Examination.
• Pharmacists: the Pharmacy Council of Bangladesh (PCB) holds a Registration Examination for Grade A registration.
• Physiotherapists: registration by qualification; no exam found.

Doctors: registration, the RQE and FCPS Part I

Registration for local graduates

Full registration follows internship. The BM&DC registration page lists the required documents. Because there is no exam, the licensing step is administrative, and the time cost is the internship allocation.

Registration Qualifying Examination (foreign MBBS)

The RQE is aimed at holders of degrees from institutions BM&DC does not recognise. It is a small exam: in the sitting of 23 October 2020, 25 candidates qualified. The format is not published in the sources we hold, so we cannot state question numbers or a pass mark. Check the BM&DC notices. Bangladesh is mainly an exporter of foreign-trained graduates, not an importer; Indian and Nepali students who study there generally sit FMGE or the NMC exams at home.

FCPS Part I (BCPS)

The Bangladesh College of Physicians and Surgeons runs the main postgraduate entry exam for MBBS and BDS graduates beginning FCPS training. Since January 2024 the format has been fixed in a BCPS notice.

The 150 questions split into 75 multiple true/false items and 75 single-best-answer items. It is held twice a year. A separate residency admission test for MD and MS seats is run through Bangladesh Medical University.

1. Complete internship. Obtain full BM&DC registration.
2. Choose a route. FCPS (BCPS) or MD/MS (residency admission test).
3. Register for FCPS Part I. Apply in the BCPS notice window.
4. Sit one paper. 150 questions, 4 hours.
5. Meet the subject pass mark. 70% for clinical subjects, 60% for basic.

Nurses and midwives: the BNMC licensing exam

The Bangladesh Nursing & Midwifery Council (BNMC) conducts a Comprehensive Licensing Examination for graduates of the Diploma in Nursing Science & Midwifery, the B.Sc in Nursing and the three-year Diploma in Midwifery. Sittings have been seen in March and September, roughly twice a year.

The written paper is multiple choice. A practical or viva component is reported but we could not verify it, so check the council’s circular for your programme. The cohorts are large, and the exam is the largest licensing-style MCQ market in the country. BNMC also publishes through bnmc.gov.bd as well as its government portal.

Dentists

Local BDS graduates are registered by qualification with internship. Foreign BDS holders take the RQE (BDS). In the October 2020 sitting no BDS candidates qualified, which tells you how selective it can be. Postgraduate dental entry runs through FCPS Part I at BCPS, in the same format as above.

Pharmacists

B.Pharm graduates seeking Grade A registration sit a PCB Registration Examination. Our sources show the exam was not being held for a period, leaving graduates unable to register, and the current schedule is unverified. Check with the council before planning.

Physiotherapists

The National Rehabilitation Council, created under the 2018 Act, is the regulator. Its operational status was unclear in a 2020 press report. No exam has been found and an official web address is not confirmed. BPT graduates should ask their institution which registration is currently accepted by employers.

Preparing for the Bangladesh exams

The three exam types call for three different kinds of preparation, and mixing them up is the commonest way to lose marks.

• FCPS Part I: the 75 multiple true/false items are scored item by item, so partial knowledge helps if you know which statements are safe. Work from the BCPS marking system document, which sets out how marks are awarded, before you decide how aggressively to guess. Basic-subject and clinical-subject candidates face different pass lines (60% and 70%), so know which one applies to your specialty.
• BNMC licensing exam: the cohorts are large and the exam is held about twice a year, so the March and September sittings set the calendar. Build revision around the diploma or B.Sc syllabus you actually studied, since the council sets papers by programme.
• RQE: with so few candidates qualifying in recent published sittings, treat this as a high-bar test and request the current syllabus from BM&DC at the outset.

Across all three, the safest rule is to work from the regulator’s own notice for your sitting, not from a forwarded summary. Formats have changed before, notably the FCPS Part I format that took effect in January 2024.

Exams in Bangladesh at a glance

Language and recognition

Medical education in Bangladesh is in English, and so are the FCPS and BM&DC processes. Nursing students often prefer Bangla for revision, and the BNMC paper’s language of delivery should be checked in the circular. Doctors planning to work abroad usually treat BM&DC registration as the first credential. Gulf employers then require Dataflow primary-source verification and a Prometric or equivalent exam, and the UK requires PLAB. Those are separate programmes; see the relevant country hubs.

TriagePass is independent and is not affiliated with BM&DC, BCPS, BNMC or PCB.

Last reviewed October 2026