Yes From my personal experience as a medical student, and former medical officer in primary health centres, I feel there is an urgent need for changing the structure of the current medical curriculum. These days, students get very little hands-on training in bedside clinics.

But in a country like India where the majority of healthcare clientele resides in villages, it is more important to fall back on basic clinical skills. When I passed out of Calcutta Medical College, there was a fear in us that villages were not the best places to practise modern medicine.

On the contrary, seeing sophisticated instruments lying unused in primary health centres astonished me. So the argument of poor infrastructure in villages can easily be scuttled. Lastly, we, from our institute, have been visiting villages with community outreach programmes. Since it is hugely successful, I predict a similar success for students going to villages to learn the basics of medicine.

Dr Rudraprosad Chakraborty,
Ranchi Institute of Neuropsychiatry and Allied Sciences, Ranchi

Yes We know India lives in villages and a lack of proper and adequate medical facilities is the reason for the poor health conditions of the villagers. Medical students can fill the gap. Besides learning in classes, they should be responsible for reaching modern health amenities to villagers.

It?s not just parents ? but our countrymen as a whole ? who spend huge amounts of money to make sure that the best facilities are provided for medical education. Therefore, our poor villagers deserve proper care and healing, at least from grooming doctors. This in turn will create a tie between them.

Gautam Kumar Choudhury,
Cooch Behar

Yes It should be made mandatory for medical students to visit villages. In any curriculum, practical knowledge is always important and more helpful than theoretical knowledge. A person in any profession, especially if he or she is a doctor, would learn and gather experience most if they practised hands-on instead of reading books.

By visiting villages, students will learn a lot more ? by having to deal with different diseases, their causes, effects and how to combat them ? than by classroom learning. This way, not only will future doctors be benefitted, but also the ailing patients in the villages who suffer due to lack of proper medical treatment. Hence, villages are the best platforms where they could gain experience and thus, become better doctors.

Rimli Datta,
Salt Lake, Calcutta

No The proposal is definitely novel. However, at the same time, it must also be kept in mind that practical training is helpful only after the students have a thorough theoretical knowledge. This is more applicable in disciplines such as medicine.

According to me, classrooms and laboratories are the best places for acquiring theoretical knowledge. Thus, a right balance of classroom and practical learning must be achieved. My suggestion is, let the four-and-a-half-year course be followed as is currently done. After the four-and-a-half-year course, let the duration of the paid internship period be increased, and let it be divided into three phases. In the first phase, the students will have to undergo training in rural health centres, which will be followed by training in district hospitals and finally in city hospitals. This arrangement will hopefully groom the medical graduates into more efficient doctors.

Sayan Banerjee,
Belgachhia Road, Calcutta

Due drops: A doctor administering polio vaccine to a child at a medical camp

Yes Classroom learning, as always, is a must for medical students. But before the students become doctors, they should be made to undertake bedside healing in villages. Medical students must have the experience of healing in villages because the villagers are in maximum need of proper treatment as they are the most neglected in our country. If marks are allotted for bedside healing in villages, as is done for classroom learning, then the students are bound to undertake the former. This will help them acquire real-life experience before they pass out of college to become professional doctors.

Sohini Roy,
South City College, Calcutta

Yes This is a brilliant idea. Unfortunately, doctors have been focussing a little too much on earning money. They have been ignoring the fact that the government spends a considerable amount of money on subsidising their education and that they have a duty to serve the people as well. If they spend three years in village and district hospitals they will realise the importance of their profession. They will get to see the wretched state of the health infrastructure and how people suffer because of that. Perhaps this will motivate some of the young doctors to go and serve outside the limits of the city.

From the students? point of view, too, this will be beneficial. The new syllabus proposes a more practical approach, which is infinitely better than just mugging from books or attending lectures. The more you handle patients, the faster you learn. Initially, youngsters might find it a little difficult to switch from one place to another while doing the course. But if you are motivated enough, you will get used to it. Only those who look at medicine just as an avenue of earning money might find the change difficult to accept.

Indranil Basu,
JEE medical aspirant, Calcutta

No I don?t know whether the proposed complete bedside-teaching procedure will be beneficial or not. Right now, our sole intention as medical students is to pass the MBBS exam, and then, during internship, house-staffship or even during postgraduate training, try to know the subjects better. So, as indicated in your article, it is little wonder that students who have passed the MBBS exam are not confident enough to treat patients independently. Definitely, it?s high time that the whole system is changed, to keep people?s faith in this noble profession.

But making the course completely bedside from the very first day cannot be a solution. You can?t teach anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, microbiology, and pathology at a patient?s bedside. Rather, a coordinated bedside education along with clinical application of these subject will be of immense help. Also, the clinical subjects should be made as bedside-oriented as possible. Right now, we students find it difficult to understand things even in bedside teaching due to the huge number of students who are made to crowd around a single patient. It is also necessary to decrease the student load on a single institution by sending students to other non-teaching hospitals in the country.

Rajarshi Roy,
Calcutta Medical College, Calcutta

Yes It will indeed do medical students and society well if the students are made to undergo a period of training in rural areas. The venture will thus have a dual impact. Bedside healing in villages will give students a chance to put to practice the high-sounding promises of helping the poor and needy which they make during their studies and forget after achieving their degree.

A balance between practical learning and classroom education is essential in today?s world, More so with private medical colleges mushrooming all over India, churning out ?half-baked? doctors with no experience. Restricting students to classrooms will only result in doctors practising by the book. With education adapting to the pace of the changing world in all fronts, a change in the methods of medicine is the call of the hour.

Priyadarshini Mitra
Jadavpur University, Calcutta