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ORTHOFELLOW GUIDE · 16 MINUTE GUIDE

Orthopaedic Fellowships in India: FNB, FET & Visas

India has several kinds of orthopaedic fellowship, and they work differently. The national route is the two-year Fellowship of National Board (FNB), run by the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences (NBEMS). Admission is through one entrance test, the FET, followed by centralised merit-based counselling. Alongside it sit institute fellowships such as those at AIIMS New Delhi, university-affiliated fellowships under health sciences universities such as RGUHS (Karnataka) and MUHS (Maharashtra), and hospitals' own programmes with their own selection. The Indian Orthopaedic Association (IOA) also runs short travelling and visiting fellowships for its members. OrthoFellow lists 194 Indian programmes. This guide sets out what the official NBEMS, NMC, government, university and hospital pages say, so you can tell the routes apart before you apply. Every figure is from a page we opened on 8 October 2026, and rules change each cycle.

By Anissa Feby Canintika, Founder and Clinical EditorPublished · Materially updated
Educational guidance, not legal, immigration, licensing or admissions advice.

How orthopaedic fellowships are organised in India

The word 'fellowship' covers very different things in India, so start by working out which kind a programme is. An NBEMS FNB is a formal two-year course at an NBEMS-accredited hospital. It ends in an NBEMS exit examination, and the qualification is listed in a Gazette of India notification as a recognised medical qualification. Institute and university fellowships, such as those at AIIMS New Delhi or those affiliated to RGUHS or MUHS, have their own prospectus, entrance test and calendar. Many private hospitals also run their own fellowships, with selection and certificates set by the hospital. IOA fellowships are short funded visits for IOA life members. They are not training posts.

  • NBEMS FNB: two years, entry through the national FET and NBEMS counselling, minimum stipend set by NBEMS, no thesis, and an exit examination once a year.
  • AIIMS New Delhi: its own Fellowship Programme prospectus, a computer-based test and a departmental assessment. The July 2025 session offered orthopaedic fellowships in arthroscopy, joint replacement, musculoskeletal oncology and pelvic-acetabular trauma.
  • University-affiliated fellowships: for example, RGUHS fellowships at Sanjay Gandhi Institute of Trauma and Orthopaedics, Bengaluru (18 months), and MUHS fellowship courses listed by Lokmanya Hospitals, Pune (1 year).
  • Hospital-run fellowships: each hospital sets its own exam, interview, eligibility and certificate. Ganga Hospital, Coimbatore, for example, ran a 2026 written exam followed by online interviews.
  • IOA fellowships: travelling, visiting and exchange fellowships lasting one to six weeks, open only to IOA life members.

Which orthopaedic FNB courses exist

The FET 2025 Information Bulletin is the current NBEMS document. It lists 36 FNB courses for Indian candidates, and five of them are open to orthopaedic surgeons: Arthroplasty, Hand & Micro Surgery, Paediatric Orthopaedics, Spine Surgery and Sports Medicine. There is no orthopaedic trauma FNB. The bulletin's 'Trauma & Acute Care Surgery' course takes only DNB/MS General Surgery or MS Traumatology and Surgery graduates. The NBEMS fellowship web page gives a slightly older list without Paediatric Orthopaedics, so rely on the bulletin. NBEMS describes FNB courses as skill-enhancement programmes. They last two years, need no thesis, include a centralised Formative Assessment Test in the first year and end with a theory and practical exit examination.

  • Arthroplasty: feeder qualification DNB/MS (Orthopaedics). The Gazette recognises FNB (Arthroplasty) when granted on or after August 2020.
  • Spine Surgery: DNB/MS Orthopaedics or DrNB/MCh Neurosurgery. Recognised when granted on or after February 2001.
  • Sports Medicine: DNB/MS (Orthopaedics). Recognised when granted on or after January 2014.
  • Hand & Micro Surgery: DrNB/MCh Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, DNB/MS Orthopaedics or DNB/MS General Surgery. Recognised when granted on or after February 2002.
  • Paediatric Orthopaedics: DNB/MS Orthopaedics. It is on the FET 2025 course list, but the round-1 seat matrix for the 2025 admission session (dated 9 July 2026) listed no Paediatric Orthopaedics seats.
  • In that round-1 matrix, orthopaedic seats were Arthroplasty 61 (35 listings), Spine Surgery 52 (32), Hand & Micro Surgery 14 (7) and Sports Medicine 8 (6). Most were at private hospitals. The matrix is indicative and changes between rounds.

The Fellowship Entrance Test (FET)

The FET is a computer-based qualifying-cum-ranking test, and it is the only way into an FNB. NBEMS names the test after the admission session, which can confuse applicants. 'FET 2025', for the 2025 admission session, opened on 14 January 2026, and the exam was held on 14 March 2026. You must hold your feeder MD/MS/DNB/DM/MCh/DrNB by the bulletin's cut-off date (31 December 2025 for FET 2025). Indian candidates must also show NMC or State Medical Council registration at the test centre. Arthroplasty, Paediatric Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine are 'clubbed' into a single paper, so you apply for the group and choose a course at counselling.

  • FET 2025 dates: applications from 14 January to 3 February 2026, an edit window from 6 to 9 February, admit cards on 10 March, the exam on 14 March and results on 18 April 2026.
  • Paper: 100 MCQs in 105 minutes. Part A (40% weightage, 45 minutes) covers the feeder specialty and Part B (60%, 60 minutes) covers the fellowship course or clubbed group. Wrong answers lose 25%.
  • Qualifying: you must reach at least the 50th percentile within your course or group. The FET 2025 cut-offs, out of 400, were Arthroplasty/Paediatric Orthopaedics/Sports Medicine 225, Spine Surgery 172 and Hand & Micro Surgery 165.
  • The exam fee was ₹3,500 for Indian and international candidates. It is not refunded.
  • There is no upper age limit for NBEMS fellowship training.
  • Passing the FET does not guarantee a seat. NBEMS checks eligibility at counselling and joining.

Counselling, seat matrix, fees and stipend

FNB seats are allotted only through NBEMS's online centralised merit-based counselling at counseling.nbe.edu.in, in a published order of rounds. For the 2025 admission session there were two main rounds and a final mop-up round, with joining between July and October 2026. You pay the first-year course fee when you register for counselling. Choices count only if you lock and confirm them. If you get a seat and neither freeze nor upgrade it, you drop out of later rounds and lose the fee. After joining, the hospital and trainee complete NBEMS's Online Portal for Joining & Registration (OPJR), and NBEMS then issues a Letter of Provisional Registration.

  • Round 1 (2025 session): registration and choices 9–13 July 2026, result 16 July, joining 16–22 July.
  • Round 2: choices 28–30 July 2026, result 3 August, joining 3–10 August.
  • Final mop-up round: choices 18–21 September 2026, result 25 September, joining by 1 October 2026. Anyone who did not join in time lost the seat and the first-year fee.
  • Fees: a ₹2,500 counselling registration fee and an annual course fee of ₹1,25,000 for Indian and SAARC candidates, or USD 5,000 for other international candidates. The course fee is refunded if you are allotted no seat in any round.
  • Minimum stipend: an NBEMS notice dated 3 June 2025 set FNB minimums of ₹49,000 a month in year 1 and ₹51,000 in year 2, from 1 June 2025. Private and state government hospitals must pay this or the basic stipend under state policy, whichever is higher.
  • NBEMS pays stipend for no more than 24 months, even if excess leave extends your training. The seat matrix also has a 'service bond' column, so check it before you choose a seat.

International surgeons: the FPIS route

Doctors from outside India can take an FNB through NBEMS's Fellowship Programme for International Students (FPIS). They sit the same FET but have a separate merit list. The FET 2025 bulletin offers only two orthopaedic courses to international candidates: Arthroplasty and Spine Surgery. Its provisional FPIS institution list for those courses covers Anup Institute of Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation (Patna), Amandeep Hospital (Amritsar), Ganga Medical Centre (Coimbatore) and Medica Superspecialty Hospital (Kolkata) for arthroplasty, and Indian Spinal Injuries Centre (New Delhi), Ganga Medical Centre, MIOT Hospital (Chennai) and Kothari Medical Centre (Kolkata) for spine. NBEMS says the list depends on institutions' consent.

  • Eligibility: a postgraduate qualification equal to the Indian feeder degree, registered in your own country and recognised under the NMC Act, 2019. You must also be a registered practitioner at home.
  • Before joining, you need a 'No Objection Certificate' from your medical council or government allowing you to work in India for the fellowship. Some nationalities also need Ministry of Home Affairs security clearance. NBEMS issues a visa support letter.
  • FPIS counselling for the 2025 session was offline. Registration and document submission ran 25–27 August 2026, the result came out on 2 September and joining was 2–8 September 2026.
  • Fees: USD 5,000 a year for non-SAARC nationals and ₹1,25,000 for SAARC nationals. The counselling fee and course fee are not refunded once you register, even if you are later found ineligible.
  • After allotment you must obtain temporary NMC registration for the length of the FNB, limited to your allotted hospital.
  • NBEMS says the training guidelines for Indian FNB trainees also apply to FPIS trainees. The documents we read do not state an FPIS stipend, so ask the hospital before you accept.

AIIMS and university fellowships

Outside the FNB system, some institutes and health sciences universities run their own orthopaedic fellowships. Each has its own prospectus, eligibility, entrance test and timetable. AIIMS New Delhi's July 2025 Fellowship Programme prospectus is the most recent we could open. Its orthopaedic fellowships required an MS Orthopaedics and three years of post-PG teaching experience as a Senior Resident or equivalent. Under RGUHS and MUHS, individual institutions advertise university fellowships under a university notification.

  • AIIMS New Delhi, July 2025 session: Arthroscopy had 4 seats (2 open, 2 sponsored), Joint Replacement 2 (sponsored), Musculoskeletal Oncology 2 (sponsored) and Pelvic-Acetabular Trauma 2 (1 open, 1 sponsored). The first three ran for 2 years and pelvic-acetabular trauma for 1 year. A Spine Surgery fellowship in the Neurosurgery department took MS Orthopaedics (with the same experience) or MCh Neurosurgery.
  • AIIMS timetable for that session: registration 9–23 April 2025, CBT on 10 May, departmental assessment 29–30 May, final result 5 June and joining 1–15 July 2025. The application fee was ₹2,000 for General/OBC candidates.
  • AIIMS pay: open-category fellows received Senior Resident emoluments (3rd year plus 2 increments, 7th CPC). Sponsored candidates and foreign nationals received no emoluments. Foreign nationals apply through diplomatic channels, against sponsored seats, and need a Ministry of Health 'No Objection'.
  • RGUHS (Karnataka): Sanjay Gandhi Institute of Trauma and Orthopaedics, Bengaluru, advertised 2025–26 fellowships under RGUHS notification dated 2 July 2025. Its offer covered Sports Injury & Arthroscopy, Arthroplasty, Spine Surgery and Advanced Orthopaedic Trauma, each 18 months with 4 places, with an entrance exam on 19 August 2025, a course fee of ₹34,840 plus the university fee, and stipend 'according to Government notification'.
  • MUHS (Maharashtra): Lokmanya Hospitals, Pune, lists MUHS fellowship courses in Joint Replacement Surgery (MS/DNB Orthopaedics) and Orthopaedic Trauma (Diploma in Orthopaedics or MS/DNB Orthopaedics), each 1 year with 2 seats. It also lists FNB Arthroplasty (2 years, 2 seats).
  • We could not open a current RGUHS or MUHS university-level calendar for 2026–27. Check the university's own notices before relying on these dates.

Private hospital fellowships and IOA fellowships

Many Indian orthopaedic fellowships are run by the hospitals themselves. The hospital's own pages are then the only reliable source on the exam, interview, eligibility, duration, fee and stipend, and many pages leave some of these out. Ganga Hospital, Coimbatore, is one example. Its 2026 page listed candidates shortlisted after a written exam in five streams: Sports Medicine & Arthroscopy, Arthroplasty, Spine, Trauma & LRS, and Paediatric Orthopaedics. Shortlisted candidates were then invited by email to an online interview. Its published syllabi ask for a postgraduate orthopaedic degree (MS or DNB) and prefer, but do not require, two years of practice afterwards. The spine fellowship also accepts neurosurgeons. The pages we read do not state duration, fees or stipend.

  • For any hospital fellowship, ask in writing about duration, fee or caution deposit, stipend, accommodation, the operative role and who awards the certificate.
  • For foreign applicants, the NMC requires the sponsoring hospital to publish course content, duration, facilities, teaching, faculty (with registration numbers), infrastructure and fees on its website before it applies for your temporary registration. A hospital with none of this online may face delays.
  • IOA Inland Fellowships (latest posted cycle 2023): open only to IOA life members, with up to three applications but one award, and no award to anyone who held an IOA fellowship in the previous five years. Examples include a Travelling Fellowship (4 places, under 40), the Babhulkar, Kulkarni and JMRF Paediatric fellowships (3–6 weeks, ₹50,000 each) and 100 Yuva Mentor fellowships (2–3 weeks, ₹40,000).
  • IOA Foreign Fellowships (latest posted cycle 2023–24, deadline 31 October 2023): ambassadorships and exchanges, including IOA-BIOS UK, Ireland, Malaysia, Turkey and an IOA Arthroplasty Fellowship. These are short visits abroad, mostly with age limits of under 40 or under 45.
  • IOA's fellowship pages were last updated for the 2023 cycles, so check ioaindia.org for current notices.

Registration and visas

Indian doctors need registration with the NMC or a State Medical Council to sit the FET, and NBEMS asks to see it at the test centre. At counselling, NBEMS also asks for proof that your postgraduate qualification is registered. That proof is either NMC registration or State Medical Council registration plus an Indian Medical Register certificate showing the additional PG qualification. Foreign nationals need temporary registration from the NMC's Ethics and Medical Registration Board (EMRB) under the NMC's 2023 registration regulations. The EMRB's guidelines of 18 January 2024 cover fellowships, certificate courses, clinical training and observerships.

  • Temporary registration requires a sponsor and an online application to the EMRB. For a fellowship, the sponsoring institution supplies your registration certificate, course details, fees and whether you have had temporary registration before, and pays a non-refundable processing fee.
  • You need a 'Good Standing' certificate from your home regulator, with an English translation if needed.
  • Duration: limited to the programme and to a maximum of 12 months, except formal PG, super-specialty or fellowship courses approved by the NMC and NBEMS. A 2023 NMC advisory adds that registration for fellowships is ordinarily for up to 12 months, followed by a one-year cooling-off period, and limited to the sponsoring institution.
  • Registration ends on its expiry date or when your Indian visa expires, whichever comes first, and you must stop clinical work when the visa expires. You work only under your sponsor's supervision. Surgery is allowed only if the training programme requires it.
  • Visas: the official e-Visa portal says the e-Medical visa is for patients receiving treatment. The e-Student visa (one year from grant) needs an admission letter from a recognised Indian institution and, for a medical course, a Ministry of Health and Family Welfare NOC. Confirm the right visa category with your host and the Indian mission. NBEMS issues FPIS candidates a visa support letter.
  • The Bureau of Immigration says holders of Student, Employment or Medical visas valid for more than 180 days must register with the local FRRO/FRO within 14 days of arrival.

Step-by-step timeline

The timeline below follows the 2025 FNB admission session, which ran from January to October 2026, alongside the AIIMS July 2025 cycle. As of 8 October 2026, NBEMS had not yet announced the next FET. If the next cycle follows the last one, expect the bulletin around January, but treat that as a pattern, not a date.

  • 12–18 months before the start: choose a route (FNB, AIIMS or a university fellowship, or a hospital programme) and check that your degree meets the feeder or eligibility rules. International applicants should also start on the home-country NOC and, if needed, MHA security clearance.
  • January–February: the FET bulletin and application window (14 January–3 February 2026 last time). AIIMS's July session opened in April (9–23 April 2025).
  • March–June: the FET (14 March 2026) and its result (18 April 2026). The AIIMS CBT and departmental assessment fall in May.
  • July–August: FNB online counselling rounds 1 and 2 and joining. AIIMS fellows join from 1 July.
  • Late August–September: FPIS offline counselling (25–27 August 2026) and the FNB mop-up round (joining by 1 October 2026).
  • After joining: complete OPJR registration with NBEMS. Foreign fellows must have NMC temporary registration in place, and register with the FRRO within 14 days of arrival if their visa requires it.
EVIDENCE AND ACTIONS

Sources checked and applicant checklist

Every date, fee, seat count and rule in this guide was read on official NBEMS, NMC, Government of India, AIIMS, IOA, university-affiliated institute or hospital pages on 8 October 2026. FNB figures refer to the 2025 admission session, which ran in 2026. AIIMS figures refer to the July 2025 session, the most recent AIIMS fellowship prospectus we could open. IOA figures refer to the 2023 cycles, the latest posted. We could not verify current RGUHS or MUHS university-level calendars, or Sancheti Institute fellowship terms, so these are omitted. Confirm everything with the body concerned before applying.

Before you act

  • Download the current FET information bulletin and check your feeder degree, cut-off date and course group.
  • Check the indicative seat matrix for each counselling round, including the service-bond column, before locking choices.
  • For AIIMS, university or hospital fellowships, get the prospectus or written terms on duration, fee, stipend and certificate.
  • International applicants: confirm the NMC temporary registration route, home NOC, visa category and FRRO registration with the host institution.

Official sources

Sources reviewed 8 October 2026. Recheck the linked source because cycles and regulatory requirements can change.
COMMON QUESTIONS

Frequently asked questions

Is there an FNB in orthopaedic trauma?

No. The FET 2025 bulletin lists five FNB courses for orthopaedic surgeons: Arthroplasty, Hand & Micro Surgery, Paediatric Orthopaedics, Spine Surgery and Sports Medicine. 'Trauma & Acute Care Surgery' is for general surgeons. Orthopaedic trauma fellowships are available outside the FNB system, for example the AIIMS pelvic-acetabular trauma fellowship, MUHS orthopaedic trauma courses and some hospital programmes.

Can a foreign orthopaedic surgeon do an FNB in India?

Yes, through NBEMS's FPIS route, but only in Arthroplasty and Spine Surgery among orthopaedic courses in the FET 2025 bulletin. You sit the FET, are ranked on a separate FPIS merit list, attend offline counselling and need a home NOC, any MHA security clearance, a valid visa and, after allotment, NMC temporary registration. The fee for non-SAARC nationals was USD 5,000 a year.

What is the minimum FNB stipend?

Under the NBEMS notice of 3 June 2025, the minimum is ₹49,000 a month in the first year and ₹51,000 in the second, from 1 June 2025. Private and state government hospitals must pay this or the basic stipend under state policy, whichever is higher.

How much does an FNB cost?

For the 2025 session, the FET exam fee was ₹3,500 and the counselling registration fee ₹2,500. The annual course fee was ₹1,25,000 for Indian and SAARC candidates and USD 5,000 for other international candidates. You pay the first-year course fee at counselling registration. It is refunded if you get no seat, but forfeited if you take a seat and do not join.

When is the next FET?

As of 8 October 2026, NBEMS had not announced it. The last test, FET 2025, opened on 14 January 2026 and was held on 14 March 2026. Check the FET page on natboard.edu.in and NBEMS notices rather than relying on the pattern.

Does a foreign doctor need NMC registration for a short hospital fellowship or observership?

The NMC's January 2024 guidelines list fellowships, certificate courses, clinical training and observerships among the purposes that need temporary registration. The host institution must sponsor and apply. Registration is tied to that institution and programme and normally lasts up to 12 months. It ends early if your visa expires.

Are IOA travelling fellowships training posts?

No. IOA inland and foreign fellowships are short visits, lasting one to six weeks or built around a conference. They are for IOA life members and often have age limits. IOA's posted pages were last updated for the 2023 cycles, so check ioaindia.org for the current call.

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