New MBBS Curriculum to have 2 Month Foundation Course for Medicos

"The changes are made to commensurate with needs of the country, disease burden, national health programmes and policies."-- Dr Vedprakash Mishra, chairman of MCI's Academic Council

New Delhi: In order to familiarize medical students to the MBBS programme first instead of them jumping into the medical subjects, a two-month foundation course has been proposed by the medical council in the new MBBS curriculum, says a recent media report

The move has been taken in order to set change to the current course which is considered to be deeply dependant on theory classes. Officials from the MCI told the Indian Express that didactic classes will be reduced to a minimum once this course initiates.

Medical Dialogues team had earlier reported that the new curriculum, called Competency Based Integrated Curriculum for UG Medical Education aims to instil a practical based training approach to medical education, with students getting practical exposure from the very first year. It will see a three-pronged strategy to develop problem-based learning and develop skill-based competencies of medical students. This will be done through integration of three aspects- classroom teaching, hospital-based medicine and community medicine.

Dr Vedprakash Mishra, chairman of MCI's academic council and the head of the drafting team of this new module informed TNIE, "The changes are made to commensurate with needs of the country, disease burden, national health programmes and policies."

Confirming that duration of each year of the MBBS will remain the same, he added, "Classes will begin with faculty explaining the history of medicine, they will teach communication, language and other skills required. Thereafter, they will be put across MBBS curriculum which will be competency based-which is core idea of the syllabus."

According to new curriculum received in an RTI reply by Indrajit Khandekar, professor, Clinical Forensic Medicine, MGIMS- Sewagram, two-thirds of the course shall include interactive, practical, clinical or based on group discussions, reports TNIE.

Speaking to The New Indian Express, Dr Indrajit stated, "This will help students to understand the practical intricacies of medico-legal work. Now, examinations of sexual assault cases are taught theoretically to MBBS students. That means students are passing the MBBS course without practical examination or without witnessing a single examination. This would change."

Not Just this, the practical training of MBBS students was moved to the first year. These changes have been proposed in the new module, Competency-based Integrated Curriculum for Under Graduate Medical Education which will be implemented from 2019-20. It will replace the decades-old existing module.

This new syllabus has been drafted by the Medical Council of India's (MCI) academic council and it apparently inherits many points from the guidelines laid down by the World Federation for Medical Education.

Read Also: Coming Soon: New MBBS Curriculum

"The new course also gives much more emphasis on skills and will have competency-based tests. The students will be provided with early clinical exposure right from the first year of the 4.5 years course plus internship," an official stated.