The format register
What your university actually requires of a thesis
Thesis rules differ between universities, so a page that tells you the margin without telling you where the margin came from is worth nothing. Every entry here separates three things: what we read in the body's own document, with the document named; what is our own reading rather than a citation; and what only your own department can confirm.
- NMC PGMER-2023
- NBEMS 180 days / 26 months
- UGC 2018 · under 10%
- ICMR 2017 · ethics
The design
The design
How to read a page here
What we read, what we reckon, and what you must ask
Most formatting rules in Indian postgraduate medicine are set locally and change without notice. A register that pretended otherwise would be easy to write and dangerous to follow.
Each page opens with three registers, kept apart on purpose. First, what we read in a document the body published, each line printed beside the document it came from, so you can check it rather than trust it. Second, anything that is our own reading rather than a citation — how a body is constituted, or a warning we are giving on our own authority — labelled as ours, because a claim of ours dressed as a regulation is the worst thing a page like this could do. Third, what we could not establish, in plain words. Then the questions to put to your department, because that is where the answer actually lives.
The arithmetic, since you are entitled to it before you click anything. Of the 19 entries here, 5 state format requirements we read in the body's own published document — and on 3 of those 5 the document's own scope or date is unsettled, which that page says in the same breath as the figures. A further 4 carry a document that is not a format: a circular, a notification, an old site. 10 carry nothing sourced at all. Every row in the register is labelled with which of those it is, so you can tell before you read it.
We have not padded the last group out. A page about a university whose format we could not reach is short, says why in the same sentence on every such page rather than in fresh words each time, and sends you to your department with a list. That is a better page than the same length of invented text with a university's name typed into it.
The reason for the asymmetry is mundane, and worth knowing because it tells you where to look. One body puts its rules in a state gazette, which is specific, dated and readable by anyone. Another issues them as a circular tied to a single examination session, so the deadline and the format live in different documents and only one of them is public. A third publishes a guidebook with no date on it. Two of the universities here publish guidebooks that are, in long stretches, the same sentences as each other — which tells you those instructions were inherited rather than drafted for your degree. And some sites simply returned a 404 to us where a document used to be. We treat “we could not retrieve it” as what it is, and never as “they do not publish it”.
The rule we work to
No margin, font, page limit, word count, binding colour, copy count or submission date appears in this section for a named university unless we read it in that university's own document and printed a link to it. A formatting rule a student follows and a university then rejects is a real cost in reprinting and in time, and an invented one is worse than silence.
Where a rule is set locally — and most are — the page says so and tells you who to ask. Your department's current circular always outranks anything written here.
The limits
The limits
What this section is not
Not an affiliation, not an endorsement, not a city page
Three things this register is routinely mistaken for, stated here so no reader has to guess.
Not an affiliation
Naming a university here means we have read or looked for its published thesis rules. It does not mean the university knows we exist. MDThesis is not affiliated with, approved by, accredited by or endorsed by any university or examining body, and no page in this section may say or imply otherwise.
Not an endorsement
The register is not a ranking and not a recommendation. A body appears here because postgraduates we work with are examined by it, and the order is alphabetical by state within each group. Nothing is ordered by preference, and nobody pays to be listed.
Not a city page
We do not publish a page per city. A page that swaps a place name into the same text carries no information, and we would be asking you to read it anyway. A page per examining body is different only because the rules genuinely differ — and where they do not, we say nothing.
Non-affiliation statement · applies to every page in this section
MDThesis works to these published standards. It is not affiliated with, approved by, accredited by or endorsed by any of the bodies that issue them, nor by any university.
The register
The register
By examining body
The register
Grouped by the kind of body that examines you, because that is what decides whose rules govern your thesis. Within each group, by state.
National board
One format and one calendar for the whole country, and the only pathway here where your deadlines are counted in days from the date you joined.
State health universities
Your college teaches you; the university examines you and sets the format. Listed by state.
- NTRUHSDr. NTR University of Health Sciences, VijayawadaAndhra PradeshContext sourced
- SSUHSSrimanta Sankaradeva University of Health Sciences, GuwahatiAssamContext sourced
- UHSRPandit Bhagwat Dayal Sharma University of Health Sciences, RohtakHaryanaChecklist only
- RGUHSRajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences, KarnatakaKarnatakaContext sourced
- KUHSKerala University of Health Sciences, ThrissurKeralaFormat sourced
- MPMSUMadhya Pradesh Medical Science University, JabalpurMadhya PradeshChecklist only
- MUHSMaharashtra University of Health Sciences, NashikMaharashtraFormat · scope unconfirmed
- BFUHSBaba Farid University of Health Sciences, FaridkotPunjabFormat · scope unconfirmed
- RUHSRajasthan University of Health Sciences, JaipurRajasthanChecklist only
- TNMGRMUThe Tamil Nadu Dr. M.G.R. Medical University, ChennaiTamil NaduChecklist only
- KNRUHSKaloji Narayana Rao University of Health SciencesTelanganaChecklist only
- ABVMUAtal Bihari Vajpayee Medical University, Uttar Pradesh, LucknowUttar PradeshFormat · scope unconfirmed
- WBUHSWest Bengal University of Health Sciences, KolkataWest BengalContext sourced
States without a single health-sciences university
Where the degree comes from the general state university your college is affiliated to, two candidates in one state can be bound by two different formats.
Institutes of national importance
Degree-awarding in their own right, so the format is internal rather than state-wide.
Central universities
The university both teaches and awards, and its own ordinances carry the thesis rules.
A body you do not see here is not a body we cannot work with. The register covers the examining bodies our postgraduates are registered with most often; if yours is missing, the checklist on any page in this section is still the right list of questions, and a feasibility call costs nothing.
The floor
The floor
Regardless of your university
What applies to every Indian postgraduate thesis
Four instruments sit under every entry in this register. Your university's format can be stricter than them. It cannot release you from them.
- NMC PGMER-2023[1]
- The thesis remains compulsory for every broad and super-specialty postgraduate under the Post Graduate Medical Education Regulations, 2023, in force from 1 January 2024. It is assessed within the practical and viva examination and judged by an external examiner from outside the state. The same regulations require one research activity, a research methodology course and GCP training before the final examination. None of that varies by university. It does vary by degree: these are the National Medical Commission's regulations for postgraduate medical education, so an MDS candidate is assessed under the dental regulator's instrument instead and should ask for it by name.
- ICMR 2017 · ethics before data[5]
- Institutional Ethics Committee approval precedes data collection, informed consent is mandatory, and prospective interventional studies are registered with the Clinical Trials Registry of India. A dataset collected before approval cannot be fixed afterwards by any formatting change, which is why this is the first date to settle and not the last.
- UGC 2018 · similarity[3]
- The 2018 academic integrity regulations establish the convention that similarity below 10% is acceptable, with graded penalties above it. Most health universities apply that threshold to the postgraduate thesis and ask for a report at submission. Which tool produces the report, and what it excludes from the count, is set locally — so that is a question for your department and not an assumption for us.
- ICMJE · authorship[4]
- You are the sole author of your thesis on the ICMJE criteria, and we are not. Mentoring, editing, statistics and compliance review belong in your acknowledgements. Our name appears nowhere in your author line, on any format, at any university.
DNB and DrNB trainees sit outside this pattern, because NBEMS[2] is both the examining body and the author of the format. That register entry is the fullest one here for exactly that reason — one national document instead of one format per university. Read the NBEMS entry.
Our part
Our part
How MDThesis uses this
We work to your template, not to ours
The practical consequence of everything above: you bring the document your department gave you, and the format stops being your problem.
Before your first chapter is drafted we ask for your university's current format document and your department's own copy of the title page, and we set the draft to those. Where the two disagree, your department's copy wins, because your department signs the submission. Where your university is stricter than the conventions in this register, the stricter rule is the one we follow.
Where a format cannot be established at all — which is most of this register — we do not guess. Your mentor goes through the checklist on your university's page with you on the first call, and the answers go on your record as dated rows, so nobody has to remember a phone call six months later. An MDSoftune word-level uniqueness report travels with every draft, long before your institution runs a check of its own.
We do not promise a grade, an approval, an acceptance or a similarity figure, and we cannot predict what your university's own checker will report. What we undertake is that the document you submit is formatted to the rules your examiners actually hold, and that you remain its only author.
The same commitments, in summary
Protection of your work
Row-level security
Every table enforces row-level access. You read your own record, and nothing else.
View-only streaming
Drafts are streamed to you through an authenticated route, not handed over as a file.
Watermarked to you
Every page you read carries your own name and email across it.
Download gated
The final file unlocks when the fee is settled in full, and not before.
Mumbai region · DPDP 2023
Your record and your documents are held in the Mumbai region, so India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 applies to them.
Anonymised data only
We accept no patient identifiers. An NDA is available on request.
Instruments we work to
NMC PGMER-2023
The thesis obligations set out in the postgraduate medical education regulations.
NBEMS
DNB and DrNB protocol and thesis timelines, and the page limit, as published.
UGC 2018 · <10%
The academic integrity convention we work to on every draft.
ICMJE · Vancouver
Authorship criteria and reference style, applied as published.
No affiliation
We work to these published instruments. We are affiliated to none of the bodies that issue them.
Authorship and the uniqueness check
Sole author
Mentoring, editing, statistics and compliance. You remain the sole author of your thesis.
Not ghostwriting
We will not write your thesis for you, and we will not be named in it.
MDSoftune
Word-level uniqueness checking, built with REDENN Informatics Inc., Canada.
Every version
Each draft is checked word by word before your university sees it.
MDThesis is an independent academic mentorship practice. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or acting for the NMC, NBEMS, UGC or any university.
Free feasibility call
Bring your university's format document to the call
A senior doctor reads it with you, tells you what it actually requires of your chapters, and says plainly whether your topic fits the time you have left. No fee and no account.
Request for a feasibility call
No obligation
Reply within one working day · No obligation · Your details are not shared
Prefer to write to us first? Contact the practice. We mentor and edit; you remain the sole author of your thesis.
Document: Thesis format register · Revision 2 · Last reviewed
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