Tbilisi Medical Academy: How Students Build Internationally Recognised Credentials

What makes a medical degree from Tbilisi Medical Academy portable across borders?

Three things travel: the school's listing in the World Directory of Medical Schools with an active ECFMG Sponsor Note, the accreditation of its MD programme by Georgia's National Center for Educational Quality Enhancement, and the Recognition Status the World Federation for Medical Education has granted to that agency. Together they satisfy the entry gate that licensing bodies abroad apply first.

The Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates, part of Intealth, states plainly that if there is no ECFMG Sponsor Note on the Sponsor Notes tab of a school's World Directory listing, its students and graduates are not eligible for ECFMG Certification. That single tab decides whether the United States is on the table. Petre Shotadze Tbilisi Medical Academy has one, and its record also notes that Canadian provincial medical regulatory authorities recognise the degree. Students can check this themselves. The World Directory is free and public.

Is Tbilisi Medical Academy listed in the World Directory of Medical Schools?

Yes. Petre Shotadze Tbilisi Medical Academy Faculty of Medicine holds FAIMER school ID F0000571 in the World Directory of Medical Schools, listing Tbilisi, Georgia as its location and 1992 as the year instruction began. The English-language six-year MD programme is recorded separately, launched in 2012 and accredited on 13 July 2020.

The World Directory is a joint venture of the World Federation for Medical Education and FAIMER, a division of Intealth, published on its current site since 4 April 2014; its 2024 update put the catalogue at more than 4,000 schools. A listing is not a ranking. It is a registry entry, and the sponsor notes attached to it are what regulators read.

What does the ECFMG 2024 accreditation requirement mean for a student in Tbilisi?

From November 2024, Intealth's Recognized Accreditation Policy reports whether a medical school has been accredited by an agency itself recognised by the World Federation for Medical Education or the National Committee on Foreign Medical Education and Accreditation. Georgia's agency holds that recognition, so the academy's programme sits inside the policy. The requirement was first set for 2023 and moved after the pandemic disrupted accreditation reviews worldwide.

Accreditation shows up in a second, more practical place. ECFMG Pathway 3, one of six Pathways an international medical graduate can use to meet the clinical and communication skills requirement, is written for students and graduates of schools accredited by an agency holding World Federation for Medical Education Recognition Status. That is exactly the position of a Tbilisi Medical Academy student.

Every Pathways applicant must also pass OET Medicine: minimum 350 in Listening, Reading and Speaking and 300 in Writing, in a single sitting, dated on or after 1 January 2025. Native speakers are not exempt. Neither is anyone taught in English.

How is the six-year MD programme at Tbilisi Medical Academy structured?

Petre Shotadze Tbilisi Medical Academy divides its 360-ECTS MD into three phases: basic, behavioural and social sciences in years one to three, clinical sciences in years four and five, and general specialisation in year six. Each academic year carries 60 ECTS, each semester 30. All teaching in the international track is in English.

The academy describes a competency-based curriculum with problem-based, team-based and case-based learning, early clinical exposure and portfolio work, with clinical disciplines taught at affiliated clinics. Basic and clinical content is interleaved rather than stacked, which is why a first-year student meets patients earlier than the old preclinical model allowed. Over 800 students are enrolled, from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, India, Bhutan, Israel and Nigeria among others. The cohort is genuinely mixed.

When do students start preparing for USMLE Step 1 and Step 2 CK?

Step 1 preparation overlaps the preclinical years, because the exam covers what years one to three teach: anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, pathology, pharmacology and microbiology. Step 2 Clinical Knowledge belongs to the clinical years. Both are sat before graduation by students aiming at the United States.

Since 26 January 2022 the United States Medical Licensing Examination reports Step 1 as pass or fail only. No three-digit score to chase shifts weight onto Step 2 CK, whose minimum passing score has been 218 since 1 July 2025; Step 3 has required 200 since 1 January 2024. The effect on a study week in Tbilisi is that a question bank sits beside the module, and both calendars are planned together. Groups form early. They tend to survive all six years.

How do medical students in Tbilisi build research and conference output?

The academy runs its own international scientific conference, MEDIC — Medicine: Innovations and Challenges — as a three-day hybrid event in Tbilisi. Its 2025 edition brought together experts from European and United States medical universities, and students and young researchers presented research and public-health projects across oncology, epidemiology, artificial-intelligence diagnostics and biomedical innovation.

A conference abstract is a small thing with a long life. It is dated, citable and verifiable, and it appears on an ERAS or Foundation Programme application years later as evidence that someone did more than pass exams. Presenting at your own faculty's conference is the cheapest first entry: no travel, no visa. Audience members in year two often return as presenters in year four. Ask early. Supervisors have limited slots.

How do students arrange electives, observerships and IFMSA exchanges abroad?

The main student-run route is the International Federation of Medical Students' Associations, whose Standing Committee on Professional Exchanges has organised clerkships abroad since 1951. A SCOPE exchange is a four-week clerkship in a chosen clinical or preclinical field, and around 13,000 medical students take part each year through more than 100 national member organisations.

Georgia's national member organisation is the Georgian Young Medics' Union, which runs SCOPE for clinical clerkships and SCORE for research exchanges. Exchanges are bilateral: a Georgian student going to Portugal is matched against a Portuguese student coming to Tbilisi.

University agreements sit beside the student-run route. Petre Shotadze Tbilisi Medical Academy signed a memorandum of understanding with the University of Málaga in Spain on 15 June 2026 covering student and staff exchange, joint research and co-supervision of doctoral studies; Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility is the instrument that usually funds such agreements, with Georgia participating as a partner country. Write to departments directly.

Which language certificates does a medical student in Georgia actually need?

Two, in most cases, and neither is the language of instruction. For the United States, OET Medicine is compulsory for every ECFMG Pathways applicant: 350 in Listening, Reading and Speaking, 300 in Writing, one sitting. For the United Kingdom, the General Medical Council accepts IELTS Academic at 7.0 in each section with an overall 7.5 from the same test.

The General Medical Council treats an IELTS certificate as valid for two years, and it must be valid on the date you sit PLAB part 1 or when your registration application is approved. That clock is why British-bound students sit IELTS in year five or six rather than year two. Timing beats effort here. Georgian is the third language, and it is not a certificate — it is ward vocabulary, picked up because patients at the affiliated hospitals speak it. It shows up in the quality of the clinical years.

What does a year at Tbilisi Medical Academy cost, and what do the credentials cost on top?

Petre Shotadze Tbilisi Medical Academy lists tuition for international students in the MD English programme at USD 7,000 per academic year, with a one-time registration fee of USD 300, a reservation fee of USD 2,100 payable before enrolment is confirmed, and health insurance at USD 7 to USD 25 per month. The academy states that rates are subject to annual review by the registrar.

Georgia's Public Service Development Agency issues a study residence permit to adults enrolled at an authorised institution, at published fees of GEL 300 for 30 calendar days of processing, GEL 450 for 20 days and GEL 600 for 10 days. Applications go to a Public Service Hall. Bring the enrolment certificate.

The credential stack is a separate budget. It lands mostly in years five and six.

The OET Medicine fee is set by the test provider and does not appear in the ECFMG schedule.

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Where can a Georgian MD be used, and how does the European Union treat it?

Directly in the United States through ECFMG Certification and the National Resident Matching Program, directly in the United Kingdom through the General Medical Council's PLAB route, and in the European Union through a two-stage mechanism rather than automatic recognition, because Georgia is not an EU member state.

Directive 2005/36/EC sets the framework. Article 24(2) requires basic medical training to comprise a total of at least five years of study and at least 5,500 hours of theoretical and practical training provided by or under the supervision of a university — both conditions together, and a bar the 360-ECTS Georgian MD is built to clear. Article 2(2) allows each member state to permit holders of qualifications obtained outside the Union to pursue a regulated profession on its territory. Article 3(3) then treats a third-country qualification as evidence of formal qualifications once the holder has three years of professional experience in that profession on the territory of the member state that recognised it. That is a real route with two steps, assessed file by file. A free individual consultation is the right place to work out which country to aim at first.

The numbers on the American side are worth knowing while you plan. The National Resident Matching Program reported 44,344 positions offered across 6,809 program tracks in the 2026 Main Residency Match. Non-United States citizen international medical graduates made up 11,944 active applicants, up 479 on 2025, and matched at 56.4 percent to PGY-1 positions. Roughly six in ten. Preparation moves an individual application inside that share, and it starts in year one.

What does the first year in Tbilisi look like, month by month?

The fixed points are the semester start, the apostille and translation of school documents, the residence permit window and the accommodation search. Working back from a September start, the document work belongs to spring and the permit application to the weeks after arrival. Order the apostilles early.

Nothing in that list depends on an application deadline. Requirements and eligibility differ by university and by profile, so Medschool Experts assesses each case directly and says where a place is achievable through its partner network of medical faculties worldwide. Book a free individual consultation.

What happens if Georgia's WFME recognition expires before you graduate?

The recognition is a renewable term, not a one-off certificate, and the gate that governs ECFMG eligibility is the Sponsor Note in the school's World Directory listing. Georgia's National Center for Educational Quality Enhancement holds Recognition Status from 19 October 2018 to October 2028, and agencies re-enter the World Federation for Medical Education's review process before a term ends.

A student starting in September 2026 graduates in 2032, after that date, so the question deserves a plain answer. Recognition terms are renewed on review, the World Federation for Medical Education publishes each agency's status and expiry openly, and Intealth states that its Recognized Accreditation Policy has no impact on eligibility for ECFMG Certification where the school holds a Sponsor Note. The habit that follows is small: once a year, open the World Directory entry, click the Sponsor Notes tab, and read the graduation years it covers. It is the same page a residency programme's credentialling office reads. Do it every September.

Georgia's regulator oversees 32 medical programmes. It has strong reasons to keep its recognition current.

What do students in Tbilisi do differently if they are aiming abroad?

They treat the transcript as one deliverable among several. The ECTS record comes with the coursework; the conference abstract, the clerkship certificate, the OET or IELTS result and the elective letter do not, and each has to be fitted into a year that is already full. Scheduling is the skill.

Marcel Kloos, who founded Medschool Experts, studied dentistry in Sofia between 2015 and 2021 and now practises as a licensed dentist in Bern, Switzerland. The pattern he describes from his own six years repeats in Tbilisi: the students who finish with options did something small and documented in every year rather than one push at the end. Medschool Experts has placed over 500 study places on that principle. Compare the routes in our overview of partner universities and read what others built under student stories.