'We're Not Against Homoeopathy, But 1-Year Certification isn’t MBBS Training'

"Homeopathic doctors have their own degree. Why prescribe allopathic medicine too?" asks an MBBS doctor

On 6 August, MBBS doctors in Maharashtra staged a protest at Mumbai's Azad Maidan against allowing homeopathic doctors to practise allopathic medicine.

(Accessed by The Quint)

On 3 August, Maharashtra government's Medical Education Department issued a new Government Resolution (GR) stating that Bachelor of Homoeopathic Medicine and Surgery (BHMS) graduates who have completed the Certificate Course in Modern Pharmacology, or CCMP, are now being allowed to practise modern medicine.

As an MBBS doctor, I want to explain why this is a problem, and it isn't about which stream of medicine is better.

The main difference is in clinical training. A BHMS student is trained in homoeopathy over a five-year course. After a one-year certificate on top of that, they are now allowed to directly practise allopathic medicine.

An MBBS doctor, on the other hand, spends around five and a half years, starting from the basics of anatomy and physiology and all the foundational subjects, and only after that are they allowed to practise allopathy.

'Not a Question of Which Stream is Better'

There's nothing wrong with the homoeopathy course or stream itself. They can certainly practise within it. But asking them to practise allopathy based on a one-year certificate doesn't hold up. The way they are taught is a very different process altogether.

For example, if someone has swelling on the neck, it's easy to prescribe a simple medicine for the swelling. But to actually get to the bottom of it, you have to assess it at multiple levels. It could be a simple swelling, or it could be a slipped disc, cervical radiculopathy, a childhood illness, or a genetic disorder.

Working through all of this is what we spend over five years on in MBBS, under biochemistry and physiology. A course like CCMP can teach the basics, but not this level of detail.

Diagnosis is largely about how you handle a situation, knowing where to stop, and understanding what a patient might face after being prescribed a certain medicine. This is where the concern is — homoeopathic doctors wouldn't know differential diagnosis with allopathic medicines.

A doctor prescribing any medicine needs to know how to manage things if something goes wrong. In such situations, it's the patient who suffers. 

'Why Mix Medical Streams At All?'

My point is simple: they already have a degree and a specialisation of their own. Why get into prescribing allopathic medicine at all? 

The same question applies to BAMS and BUMS doctors, those trained in Ayurveda and Unani medicine. Are doctors from different streams, homoeopathy, Ayurveda or Unani, taught the same processes of diagnosis and treatment as modern medicine?

If doctors from different streams are allowed to prescribe allopathic medicines, then what is the purpose of pursuing a modern medical degree, or an MD or MS, at all? Today, it is CCMP for homoeopathic doctors; tomorrow, the same could extend to Ayurvedic and Unani doctors. There has to be a point where we draw the line.

Different systems of medicine have their own textbooks and their own understanding of how the body works. We as MBBS doctors don't have the training to prescribe homoeopathic medicine either, just because we know how to prescribe allopathic medicine.

It works both ways. This isn't about which stream is better — it's that no one doctor can be expected to have expertise across streams. What matters more than treating a patient with one medicine is making sure the patient doesn't face complications from it, because complications can be far more dangerous than the original problem.

There are also nuances like age — medicines for adults are different from paediatric medicines. All of this needs more than a one-year certificate course.

'The Real Fix for the Doctor Shortage'

We do know the doctor-to-patient ratio in the country is poor, and that we need more doctors. But giving CCMP registration to homoeopathic doctors and letting them prescribe medicines they haven't studied in their full course isn't the solution. If there aren't enough MBBS doctors, the answer is to increase MBBS seats.

There's also the case of Foreign Medical Graduates — Indian students who go abroad to study MBBS because of the seat shortage here, and then return to practise in India. They have to clear the Foreign Medical Graduate Examination (FMGE), one of the toughest in the country, and even then, they've been protesting over the lack of transparency in how the exam is conducted.

In the June 2026 exam, only about 12 percent passed, i.e. 4,635 out of 37,448 candidates. After clearing it, they often wait over two years just to get a registration number before they can apply for jobs.

If the concern is a shortage of MBBS doctors, these are doctors already trained in modern medicine who could help fill that gap. The FMGE happens twice a year, and each session produces four to five thousand doctors who've cleared it. Their process could be expedited instead.

'The Long-Standing Issue of CCMP'

The CCMP provision goes back to 2014, when the state amended the Maharashtra Homoeopathic Practitioners' Act and the Maharashtra Medical Council Act to bring in this bridge course, a move that was challenged in court almost immediately.

Protests again picked up after September 2025, when the Bombay High Court allowed provisional registration of eligible CCMP candidates pending a final decision. On 3 August, a fresh Government Resolution let the MMC reopen conditional registrations from 5 August.

Our doctors' associations launched an indefinite boycott, and we protested at Azad Maidan on 6 August. We doctors have since called off the strike, in line with the Bombay High Court's direction, and are back to work, but the legal fight over cross-practice continues.

(The Quint has reached out to the Maharashtra Medical Council regarding the issues raised by the doctor. The story will be updated as and when a response is received.)

(The author is an MBBS doctor and Secretary of the Indian Medical Association–Junior Doctors' Network (IMA-JDN), Maharashtra.)

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