For all PLAB aspirants, this might be helpful

Things you must have with you before starting the procedure:

1. Scanned copy of the ID page of your passport.
2. A recent passport size photograph
3. Scanned copy of your Final Medical Diploma (MBBS Certificate).
4. A credit card with which you can make foreign transaction.

Let’s begin-

Step-1: Opening an EPIC account

Open an EPIC account using your E-mail ID. During this process you’ll need to provide information on the following things:

A. Biographic: Your name,DOB,National ID number etc

B. Medical School: In this part, You will find a drop down menu to select the name of your medical college. Few graduates from my medical college had already went through the ECFMG verification process for their USMLE purpose in the past so the name and other information related to my college was already in their system.Some of you may not find the name of your college. Do not panic! There is an option which says “Other/Not in the list”. You select that and write the required information manually. Now, I am not sure whether ECFMG will take time to verify that information or not but make sure you write the address, contact number and e-mail address of your medical college correctly while doing this because ECFMG will send your degree to that address for verification.

C. Registration/Licensure: Here you will find another drop down list. And guess what! “Bangladesh Medical and Dental Council” is already on their list (Make sure you write “And” not the symbol “&” here. Cause it matters). All you have to do is select that option and ECFMG will automatically generate the address and other contact information of BMDC from their database.

D. Organization which I am applying: Very Easy. “General Medical Council”. This step needs no explanation.

Once you are done with providing these information, You will be asked to upload a copy of your passport and photograph. These are the two things you will need at this stage. Once you upload them you will need to pay the charge for EPIC account opening and NotaryCAM service. It is going to cost you $125.

Step-2: Verification of your EPIC Identification Form (EIF) and NotaryCAM

After step-1, ECFMG will take not more than 2 days (Mine took only 24 Hours) to verify your ID documents. With all the information you have provided in step-1, ECFMG will create an EPIC Identification Form (EIF) which you can access on your account page. Now, ECFMG will send you an e-mail to notify you at your EIF is ready to be certify using NotaryCAM. NECFMG will send you the link to NotaryCAM in the email. Click on the link and after going through some basic steps NotaryCAM will send you an email where you will be given 2 options.

A. Option-1: You can avail the NotaryCAM service right now
B. Option-2: You can schedule your appointment at a later date

I choose Option-1. After that, NotaryCAM sent me a private meeting request in a separate mail. During this process you will need your passport at hand and a computer with an webcam. This process takes less than a minute to complete. The notary officer will ask you to check the information on your EIF. Then the officer will generate 4 different e-signatures for you and will ask you to choose one from them. Finally he/she will ask you to hold your passport in front of the cam. This completes the procedure. The NotaryCAM will send the certified EIF to ECFMG and once ECFMG receives the certified EIF you will be notified via email. This will take 24 hours.

Step-3: Upload your final medical diploma and pay credential verification fee

Once your EIF is certified you can upload your Final Medical Diploma/MBBS certificate on EPIC account. After uploading your diploma you will have to pay the credential verification fee of $80.

Now, ECFMG can mail your credential to your medical college. For that they will not charge you anything. But, I choose to courier my credentials to medical college. For that, you will have to pay another $30. The reason I did that because I was not confident about the e-mail handling system of my college and didn’t want them to get confused. Just to be sure I asked ECFMG to courier the package to my college. Once you pay the fee, ECFMG will take 48 hours to verify your credentials and them courier them using FEDEx to your college. You will get a tracker number from ECFMG using which you can track your package all the way. Very helpful.

Step-4: Notify your medical college and facilitate the process

Once ECFMG send the documents to your college, Notify the office of the Principal of your college immediately about it. The Principal will need to sign the documents and stamp as well in the designated part of your credentials. My college already went through the process many times in past so they handled the matter swiftly and gave me the documents in a day which saved a lot of time and trouble.

Now, your college can courier back the documents to ECFMG but most probably they will use Government Postal Service which is slow and will take a lot of time. My advise is to send the document via DHL/FedEx/TNT by yourself on behalf of the college. If you take the responsibility of sending the documents make sure to use the name of your college as the “Sender”. DO not..I repeat..Do not Use your name or contact information as “Sender” while sending the documents to ECFMG.

After sending the document all you have to do is to wait for the documents to reach ECFMG. You can check the status of your document in your EPIC account. This is where ECFMG will take 5-6 working days. And once the verification is done ECFMG will let you know via E-mail.

For me the whole process took 25 days from the date of opening the EPIC account and I had to spent a total of $235.

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Dr. Farzan Hassan