{"id":76271,"date":"2026-09-16T08:20:28","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T08:20:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsvog.com\/ur\/76271"},"modified":"2026-09-16T08:20:30","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T08:20:30","slug":"capable-youth-losing-interest-in-medical-education-as-mdcat-candidates-consistently-drop-since-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsvog.com\/ur\/76271","title":{"rendered":"Capable youth losing interest in medical education as MDCAT candidates consistently drop since 2022"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div style=\"font-size:16px;line-height:1.6\">\n<p><strong>KARACHI: Interest among talented and capable youth in medical education has declined steadily since 2022, as the number of candidates appearing for the Medical and Dental College Admission Test (MDCAT) has continuously dropped each year.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>According to available details, as many as 204,253 students appeared for the MDCAT in 2022. In 2023, attendance dropped by nearly 20,000, with 180,534 students taking the test.<\/p>\n<p>In 2024, approximately 182,000 students participated. However, an alarming decline occurred in 2025 when candidate numbers dropped to 140,000\u2014a decrease of 62,000 compared to 2022.<\/p>\n<p>This year, in 2026, the numbers dropped further to 138,000, marking an overall decline of 66,000 applicants since 2022.<\/p>\n<p>The Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) has expressed severe concern over the trend, warning that a looming shortage of doctors could cripple the healthcare sector in the future.<\/p>\n<p>The PMA attributed this declining interest primarily to the surging tuition fees at medical and dental colleges. A representative noted that the overall 66,000-student drop in MDCAT applicants is a clear sign that young people are turning away from the profession.<\/p>\n<p>Even after reopening the registration portal for a special five-day period from August 17 to August 21, only 2,063 additional candidates registered for the exam.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/arynews.tv\/capable-youth-losing-interest-in-medical-education-as-mdcat-candidates-consistently-drop-since-2022\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>KARACHI: Interest among talented and capable youth in medical education has declined steadily since 2022, as the number of candidates appearing for the Medical and Dental College Admission Test (MDCAT) has continuously dropped each year. According to available details, as many as 204,253 students appeared for the MDCAT in 2022. In 2023, attendance dropped by nearly 20,000, with 180,534 students&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":76272,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pakistan"],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":16,"label":"Pakistan"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/newsvog.com\/ur\/wp-content\/uploads\/Medical-Education-1024x576.jpg",1024,576,true],"author_info":{"display_name":"frkhokhar@gmail.com","author_link":"https:\/\/newsvog.com\/ur\/author\/frkhokhargmail-com"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":16,"name":"Pakistan","slug":"pakistan","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":16,"taxonomy":"category","description":"All about Pakistan","parent":0,"count":5458,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":16,"category_count":5458,"category_description":"All about Pakistan","cat_name":"Pakistan","category_nicename":"pakistan","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsvog.com\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsvog.com\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsvog.com\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsvog.com\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsvog.com\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76271"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsvog.com\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76273,"href":"https:\/\/newsvog.com\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76271\/revisions\/76273"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsvog.com\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsvog.com\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsvog.com\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsvog.com\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}