India Changes MBBS Curriculum After 21 Years; Doctors To Be Taught Ethics & Attitude

For youngsters who wish to pursue medicine as a viable career choice, merely being a proficient doctor won't be enough anymore. They will have to acquire critical communication skills. That's exactly what the latest MBBS curriculum, slated to be rolled out from 2019-20 academic session, seeks to inculcate.

Being revised after 21 long years, the new undergraduate curriculum has been finalised by the Medical Council of India (MCI).

Titled “Competency-based UG Curriculum for the Indian Medical Graduate,” it essentially marks a significant shift from the classroom-rote learning of the 1997-born programme to one which stresses on medical ethics, better doctor-patient relationship and outcome-based learning.

“The new MBBS curriculum has a course called Attitude, Ethics and Communication (AETCOM) which will run across years. Students will be assessed for how they communicate with patients; how they counsel people for organ donations or other challenging procedures; how sensitively do they offer care and obtain consent. All these things will count along with competencies and skills,” Dr VK Paul, chairman of the Board of Governors, MCI, told The Tribune. 

As per the suggested curriculum, the students will receive clinical exposure in their first year instead of the second. Instead, the new curriculum will include a foundation course in the first year. Beside using human cadavers for learning purposes, the use of medical mannequins and models will also be introduced for prospective doctors.

“The new UG curriculum regulations are more learner-centric, patient-centric, gender-sensitive, outcome-oriented and environment appropriate. The result is an outcome-driven curriculum which conforms to global trends,” says the document. In other words, students will have to step up their performance in the laboratory under “simulated and guided environments” as per The Tribune. 

*Originally published in The Better India*