Suggestions for Medical Curriculam

Name=Dr. Ursula Sampson M.D.,
Medical Collage faculties

The thought is noble and is the need of the hour for India. I very much appreciate the change in the trend.My comments for this are as follows.

1.The new curriculum design involves a system based approach and there is a need for reaarrangements of the topics in Biochemistry according to system.

2.The basics of carbohydrates and proteins may be taught as basic concepts with very little emphasis on the chemistry .

3The next topic can be enzymes.

4.Systemwise teaching is taken up with all basic sciences that is Anatomy, Physiology Biochemistry , pharmacology, pathology and Microbiology.

5.The systems are Basic concepts where each discipline will take the students into the respective discipline centered topics.

6. Then onwards, the systems are Blood, Immunology ,Musculo skeletal system,Gastrointestinal and Nutrition,Respiratory system, Cardiovascular system, Excretory system, Endocrine system, Reproductive system, Central nervous system and Special senses.

7. The molecular biology is dealt as follows. The general principles will be taught as basic concepts (remember our students are already coming with some knowledge in genetics , since it is taught in the school level itself.)And only the molecular mechanisms of systemwise disease will be taught along with the respective system.The distribution of Biochemistry topics as system wise topics is quite difficult but i feel it should be done to make the students really enjoy the concept of biochemical mechanism in normal health and disease.(we have done italready here.)There is a general introduction on Life cycle of a man as newborn, child adolescent , adult and old age(this has been introduced according to the suggestions from medical students in UK.There is another speciality to be introduced-that is man and environment.

8. Some of these topics need introduction in the first year as community medicine teaching.( i really could not get anything in the site that is given as foundation course. I really welcome if there is a suggestion to have a foundation course where many of these topics can be taught along with some general topics like chemistry of carbohydrates and proteins and some general topics on human genetics.

9.The learning objectives prepared needs modification in two things. The objectives should be measurable and not the words like understand(please refer to Bloom's taxonomy and the suitable verbs that should be used for each level of objectives.

10.Again the objectives and the course content distribution is sticking onto Discipline as Biochemistry and that needs to be dissolved and to be distributed into system only.

11. Though the curriculum reformation claims that it is student centered the emphasis on problem based learning as system oriented must be included(we have designed introducing PBL as a part of the curriculum delivery and not as a sole method) minimum of one problem atlease for each system can be worked out by students.

12. The implementation will face lots of opposition and discouraging. But please be firm in your decision and go ahead. If we are NOT doing NOW it is a total injustice for our Indian student community. Our students will evolve excellently on global level if only we make them exposed to such learning methods.

13.I expect our student participation in a very effective way.

14. e-learning is a good concept and now almost all material is available in internet in much attractive ways. The main role of teacher is to clearly define the learning objectives and assessment.

15.One more thing that has been successfully done by us is introduction of Clinical skills right from day one of the medical profession. there are few skills identified according to the material taught in the basic sciences and the students really enjoy the learning of basic sciences and able to correlate the basic sciences to clinical discipline. Wherever possible these skills can be taught with the help of simulated patients or (in India, even with real patients)This is successful preparation of the students before they start handling the real patients in the hospitals for clinical teaching.

16.Coming to assessment the emphasis on essay question can be minimised and the weightage on MCQ can be more. In Biochemistry I could not find any marks allotment for MCQ. Also because of student centered activity unless the weightage on internal assessment is more the student participation on all the group discussion will go down. The student must be encouraged to participate actively in all these self directed learning which must be linked to assessment. Hence the weightage must be more than 20%. i do understand that this may involve lot of oppposition from either faculty or students but unless a trust is built upon each other we cannot function as professional college which needs a continuous and complete involvement and just not on the final examination.(mastery level assessment) I wish you all Good luck in this venture and i would be more than happy to contribute my share if given a chance.