Background: India has the highest number of blind people globally, unoperated cataract being the most common cause of blindness and low vision. Although safe and effective cataract surgical techniques are available, the cataract burden continues to increase annually, due to the backlog of patients to be operated upon, and a growing number of cataract cases due to increased life expectancy. Aim: To assess cataract surgical coverage (CSC) in a rural area of north India. Methods: A population-based cross-sectional study of CSC among adults (40 years and above) was carried out in two villages of a block in north India using a predesigned questionnaire, visual acuity assessment, and distant direct ophthalmoscopy. Based on the data obtained, CSC (VA <6/60) for both “persons” as well as “eyes” was calculated. Results: Overall, CSC (persons) of 43.20% was observed, 29.31% coverage among persons with unilateral cataract and 50.45% among persons with bilateral cataract while CSC (eyes) was found to be 37.14%, being significantly higher (43.56%) among females compared to males (28.21%) ( P = 0.012). Around 50% of cataract surgeries were performed in private facilities, 41.35% in government facilities, and rest 8.65% in eye camps. Nearly 90.38% were implanted intraocular lens and 9.62% were non-intraocular lens surgeries. Conclusions: Surgical needs for cataract are currently not being met effectively. Reasons for inadequate cataract surgical services need to be sought and addressed to improve the uptake of existing services. Further, reasons for underutilization of government hospitals for cataract surgeries need to be examined.

Background and Objectives: In compliance with MCI's recommendation, a month-long Foundation Course was conducted in our institution in Aug’19. The present study was conducted to seek the opinion of the students and faculty regarding relevance of the topics included in the course to enable revisions to be made in designing the course for the subsequent sessions, to make it more effective and student-oriented. Methods: A questionnaire-based cross-sectional study was conducted to seek the opinion of 100 students who underwent the Foundation Course and 35 faculty members who were involved in teaching the topics allotted. Results: Positive feedback was recorded from63% of the students and 69% of the faculty regarding the overall experience of the course. Among the different modules, Skills module was voted as relevant by majority (73%) of students, whereas a module on Enhancement of Language and Computer Skills was found relevant to the course by a mere 52% students. In contrast, module on Sports and Extracurricular activities was adjudged as most relevant while as module on Enhancement of Language and Computer Skills got the least positive feedback (81.43% vs. 60.36%, respectively) from the faculty. Interpretation and Conclusions: Foundation Course recommended by MCI for MBBS students at the entry level is a welcome step. This can further be made more beneficial by making necessary modifications in the planning of the course in light of suggestions received from the participants.

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Introduction: In this COVID-19 epidemic, most of the countries are facing issues regarding health care from the points of management, academic, and treatment. Online medical education as an alternate source has been utilized, but it entails certain solutions to the problems encountered in this new methodology of medical education. The study was conducted to enhance the knowledge about the barriers and the concurrent solutions and help improve online medical education in COVID era. Materials and Methods: A prospective, cross-sectional study was conducted on 336 undergraduate medical students 61 medical faculty members of ABVMS, Jammu. The two online intake forms in the form of a voluntary, self-administered questionnaires were used to collect the data; whose link was made active from May 15, 2020, to May 30, 2020. The questionnaire was designed with 10 questions for faculty and 7 for students. The questions encompassed different subjects related to their preferences and perception of online learning. The data were entered in MS Excel and analyzed using the SPSS software version 20.0. P <0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: The medical faculty perceived online class discussions and assessments of the students as difficult barriers (27.87% and 40.99%, respectively) and access to books/images for teaching and lectures making and delivering as easy (50.82% and 52.46%, respectively). The students felt that the ease of theoretical learning was best with downloadable AV lectures (54.46%). A total of 48.15% students and 31.15% faculty members supported the use of online education in future (P < 0.0001). Conclusion: The coronavirus pandemic appears to be an inflection point that is forcing disruption in how we teach medicine. While in the midst of this COVID-19 crisis, the medical faculty and the students are willing for a favorable change from offline to online medical education in view of an online instructional support/training, and infrastructural change. The following core competencies are addressed in this article: Interpersonal and communication skills, Practice-based learning and improvement.