What an MD means on a doctor's profile
The MD is the three-year postgraduate degree of the medical specialities — general medicine, paediatrics, psychiatry, anaesthesia and the rest.
In India the MD is a postgraduate degree, not a primary one. It is taken after the MBBS, entered through NEET-PG, and lasts three years — the minimum the National Medical Commission's Post-Graduate Medical Education Regulations, 2023 set for a broad-speciality degree. It is awarded in the medical rather than the surgical specialities: general medicine, paediatrics, psychiatry, anaesthesiology, pathology, radiodiagnosis, dermatology, community medicine, pharmacology and others. The surgical counterpart is the MS, and the DNB is the same level of training examined by the National Board rather than a university.
The branch is the important part. "MD" alone tells you the doctor is a specialist; "MD (Psychiatry)" tells you in what. Profiles on this site record the branch where the source data carried it, and the measured block below shows which branches the MDs here are in. A doctor whose MD is in a non-clinical branch — pathology, microbiology, pharmacology — is a specialist in that branch, and will usually be listed under a laboratory or non-clinical speciality rather than as a treating physician.
Two names to keep apart. An MD from a university abroad is very often the primary medical degree, equivalent to the MBBS; and the MD in Ayurveda or Homoeopathy is a postgraduate degree in that system, registrable with an AYUSH board rather than a medical council. Neither is counted on this page.
How to check whether a doctor holds an MD
- Read the register entryA doctor's record on the Indian Medical Register names the qualification the state medical council recorded at registration, and further qualifications where the doctor has had them added. If the doctor says they hold an MD and the register shows only the primary degree, the MD has not been registered — which is common and not by itself a warning, but it does mean the register cannot confirm it.
- Check the college was recognised for the courseThe NMC's College and Course Search lists which institutions are recognised for which courses. an MD from a college not recognised for it on the year in question is a qualification the NMC does not recognise, whatever the certificate says.
- Ask the awarding body when it mattersUniversities verify degrees on request, usually for a fee; a hospital credentialing a doctor does this, and a patient can ask whether it has been done. On this site a qualification is marked verified only when it has been checked against the awarding body and the date is shown; otherwise it is marked as supplied.
6,330 doctors record an MD
5 of them (0%) have the qualification checked against the awarding body; 5 record the year it was awarded, from 1997 to 2007. The rest are recorded as supplied. Counts are read from the live database and refresh hourly.
Branches as written on profiles
| Branch | Doctors |
|---|---|
| Medicine | 1,019 |
| Psychiatry | 700 |
| Paediatrics | 323 |
| Anaesthesia | 311 |
| Pathology | 289 |
| Radiology | 136 |
| General Medicine | 117 |
| OBS & GYN | 113 |
Awarding institutions most often recorded
- U.Moscow · 3
Specialities they practise
- Internal medicine physicians · 1,717
- Paediatricians · 757
- Psychiatrists · 739
- Pathologists · 536
- Anaesthesiologists · 479
- Gynaecologists · 477
Where they practise
Branches with their own page
- MD (General Medicine) — MD in General (Internal) Medicine
- MD (Paediatrics) — MD in Paediatrics
- MD (Psychiatry) — MD in Psychiatry
- MD (Anaesthesiology) — MD in Anaesthesiology
- MD (Pathology) — MD in Pathology
- MD (Radiodiagnosis) — MD in Radiodiagnosis
- MD (Dermatology) — MD in Dermatology, Venereology and Leprosy
Questions people ask
- Is an MD a recognised qualification in India?
- Yes, when awarded by an institution recognised for it. The National Medical Commission maintains the list of recognised qualifications and of the institutions permitted to award each; an MD from a college that was not recognised for the course in that year is not a recognised qualification, and a registering body can refuse to enter it on the register.
- Is an MD better than a DNB?
- They are the same level. The DNB is awarded by the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences after the same three years of training, and the NMC recognises it as equivalent to the MD and MS. The conditions attached to teaching appointments have shifted over the years and are set by the NMC's teacher-eligibility regulations; for a patient, the two are interchangeable.
Every profile lists its qualifications as supplied and says which of them have been checked against the awarding body and when. Where none has, the profile says so.
General information about medical qualifications in India, checked against the sources listed on 25 Sep 2026. Not advice about your situation. Errors can be reported through the corrections process.