Cost-effectiveness curricula in graduate medical education are lacking and clearly needed.

Background:There has been a growing concern among medical educators about the quality of medical graduates trained in various medical colleges in our country. Data based on the faculty and student perceptions of undergraduate curriculum indicate a need for laying more stress on practical skills during their training and assessment. The Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) is a reliable and an established and effective multistation test for the assessment of practical skills in an objective and a transparent manner. The aim of this article is to sensitize universities, examiners, organizers, faculty, and students across India to OSCE.Materials and Methods:We designed an assessment based on 22-station OSCE and administered it to 67 students during their final year, integrating all the domains of learning, that is higher order cognitive domain, psychomotor domain, and affective domain. Data analysis was done using SPSS version 15.Results:The OSCE was feasible to conduct and had high perceived construct validity. There was a significant correlation between the station score and total examination score for 19 stations. The reliability of this OSCE was 0.778. Both students and faculty members expressed a high degree of satisfaction with the format.Conclusion:Integrating a range of modalities into an OSCE in ophthalmology appears to represent a valid and reliable method of examination. The biggest limitation with this format was the direct expenditure of time and energy of those organizing an OSCE; therefore, sustaining the motivation of faculty might pose a challenge.

Background: Community Medicine is a subject which receives relatively less attention in medical curriculum. Active participation of students in preparation of training modules for Community Health Workers (CHWs) could facilitate their learning in topics related to Community Medicine. This study aimed to involve medical students in the preparation of training modules for CHWs and assess the effects of their participation on their knowledge about targeted diseases. Methods: An interventional study where all 144 undergraduate fifth-semester students from Bharati Vidyapeeth University Medical College, Pune, India posted at Community Medicine Department participated in the preparation of training modules for CHWs on HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and diabetes and completed pre- and post-intervention questionnaire. Each completed questionnaire was assigned a score based on a marking system. The data was analysed using paired t test. Results: Statistically significant improvement in knowledge was found (pre-test mean score: 5.79, post-test mean score: 14.15, t = 26.93, p<0.001). All faculty opined that community visits followed by health education module preparation activity were innovative components in this study. All 119 participants agreed that their knowledge about targeted diseases improved due to module preparation activity. Conclusion: Active participation of students can facilitate their learning behavior. Students became aware of the principles of ‘Group Dynamics’ as a result of active involvement in training module preparation.

Introduction: Concerns have been raised in the literature about how well the undergraduate curriculum prepares medical students for residency. An assessment was designed and administered to entering postgraduate residents in surgery to test their preparedness vis-a-vis the competence level expected of them at the beginning of their training. This paper explores the role and place of such an assessment in the medical education continuum. Materials and Methods: Faculty members from the Department of Surgery at Bharati Vidyapeeth University Medical College (BVUMC), Pune, India and experts from the Department of Medical Education, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor designed and administered an assessment based on the multiple-choice question examination (MCQE) and objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) in June 2005 to 24 examinees from 3 different training levels at BVUMC. Results: All subsections of the MCQE showed significant correlation except the breast and endocrine section. The test showed an overall reliability of 0.8 (Cronbach’s alpha). The scores and level of difficulty of the OSCE were inversely related. There was a significant difference in performance between the 3 groups and these differences were more pronounced for more complex tasks, specifically the procedural skills station, where the intern performance was particularly poor. Clinical skills reliability was 0.85. The communication skills score correlated well with the clinical skills score and also showed good reliability. Four out of the 5 new residents had below-satisfactory levels of competence for this level. Conclusion: This pilot study reveals definite educational gaps in both knowledge and skills among the residents studied. Such an intervention can be very informative, providing immense educational benefit to the learner, faculty and programme, and has an important place in the continuum of medical training. Key words: Competence, Education, Postgraduate, Surgery

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