Kerala: Palliative care, Healthcare Counseling to be part of MBBS syllabus

Thrissur: The Kerala University of Health Sciences (KUHS) has decided to introduce palliative care and healthcare counseling in the MBBS syllabus in colleges that come under its supervision from the next academic year. Topics like antibiotic policy and evidence based medicine are also to become part of the syllabus, announced the KUHS Vice-Chancellor, Dr M K C Nair. The Academic Council of the university has already approved of the above inclusions.

"The basic syllabus for the MBBS education in the country is being framed by the Medical Council of India (MCI). But the universities can introduce add-on topics which will augment quality of medical education," added the Vice Chancellor who was attending the trans-national conference on medical education technology.

"There will not be any special examinations or texts on these subjects. But they will be discussed along with other subjects. For instance, during the classes on the healthcare practices of children with 'Down syndrome', there will be special discussions on what kind of counselling would be given to the parents of such children. Similarly, antibiotic policy will be discussed when classes on subjects like paediatric infections are discussed," he said.

Calling palliative care an important components of the state’s healthcare requirements today, Dr Nair said there was urgency to introduce medical students to these topics.

He said imparting knowledge and skills is not all there is to medical education, it also involves inculcating attitudinal changes among medical students.

It is to be understood that technological communication involves- the sender, the medium, the message and the receiver; however, human beings have a unique ability of modulating the message by subtle inclusion of emotional nuances into the body language and voice.

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