Trends in medical education!

From the era of Susruta and Charaka, wherein devout disciples learnt the art and science of healing in ancient Guru Kulas, we are now in an age of rolling out modern day physicians along a conveyor belt. Medical students are not receiving the kind of one-to-one attention that was once the hallmark of medical education, neither during the teaching laboratories of the basic science years nor during the clerkships in the clinical years. Very few faculty spend much time teaching medical students. Medical educators must realize that no other institution in society is permitted to provide education and training leading to licensure to practice medicine. Rather than a change in the curriculum, what is needed right now is a change on those who govern and participate in undergraduate medical education.


The way medicine is taught and learnt has changed beyond recognition. Technology of education has undergone tremendous change. Further, the revolution in information technology has placed the advances of medical research at the doorstep of the common man. This has profound implications for the practicing physician. In a world that is becoming increasingly quality conscious, physicians have a moral, and maybe even legal in the foreseeable future, obligation to stay updated and deliver the best available care to their patients. Does the current system of medical education equip the product emerging from the portals of a medical school with the skills required to be a lifelong, self-directed learner? The answer to that question cannot be an emphatic affirmative. Basic medical education strives to produce a pluripotential individual who can move with ease into a number of different specialized programs. The end of medical school is not the end of medical education. Although, much effort has gone into reforming the undergraduate curriculum, the area that needs real attention is of ensuring that the physician continues to acquire new knowledge and skills long after his formal medical training is completed. The following sections will focus on two issues – practice of Evidence Based Medicine and Continuation of Medical Education - that impinge the practice of medicine and maintenance of competence of physicians in the new millennium in our country. A brief description of the market forces affecting medical education and curricular changes initiated over the last few years would precede them.