Family medicine education in India: A panoramic view

Abstract

Introduction:In the recent years, there has been renewed interest in strengthening primary care for improved health services delivery. Family medicine with its holistic principles is an effective approach for building primary care workforce in resource constraint settings. Even though this discipline is well established and mainstreamed in Western countries, the same is yet to occur in low- and middle-income nations. India with its paradigm shift for universal health coverage is strategically poised to embrace family medicine as a core component of its health system. However, till date, a clear picture of family medicine teaching across the country is yet to be available.Methods:This paper makes an attempt to assess the landscape of family medicine teaching in India with an aim to contribute to a framework for bolstering its teaching and practice in coming years. The objective was to obtain relevant information through a detailed scan of the health professional curricula as well as mapping independent academic programs. Specific areas of interest included course content, structure, eligibility criteria, and accreditation.Results:Our findings indicate that teaching of family medicine is still in infancy in India and yet to be mainstreamed in health professional education. There are variations in family medicine teaching across academic programs.Conclusion:It is suggested that both medical and nursing colleges should develop dedicated Departments of Family Medicine for both undergraduate and postgraduate teaching. Further, more number of standalone diploma courses adopting blended learning methods should be made available for in-service practitioners.

A compatible model of family medicine residency training in Iran

“…Hopayian et al (2018) have recently found that the PBL technique to train Armenian FMRs could significantly improve levels of active learning and FMR-patient contact with an escalation in motivation and engagement of FMRs during their training times. Pati et al (2015) mentioned that the curriculum of FM in India primarily is problem-based which was consistent with the findings of the present study. Such training would increase the number of competent physicians in meeting the health needs of the community.…”

“…Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Nepal and Pakistan have residency programs managed by university departments of family medicine in partnership with the health department (Pati et al, 2015).…”

Family medicine: Perception and attitudes among Indian medical students

“…This leaves nearly half the student population in the dark about a specialty that has an important role to play in addressing crucial health care issues of equity, continuity of care, cost effectiveness, and holistic care that is patient centric. [ 4 9 ]…”

Strengthening Institutions for Public Health Education: Results of a SWOT Analysis From India to Inform Global Best Practices

“…diplomas, postgraduate, doctoral). To go beyond community and individual care and observe a macro-level lens of training, this research study focused on programs where training involved broader aspects of public health and not specialized community medicine programs with a more clinical focus (10,11), and thus we excluded the latter from the desk review.…”