Search

The medical curriculum is extremely vast and dynamic, and it is expected that, within the defined time frame, a student must acquire the desired learning outcomes. This draws our attention to the phenomenon of learning style, which refers to the preferred way by which a medical student tries to acquire and process information. Once we understand the learning styles of students, it enables teachers to customize their instructional strategies depending on the unique needs of the student, and this enriches the learning experience and ensures better engagement, which in turn promotes deeper understanding and enhanced knowledge retention. Learning style plays a vital role in augmenting academic performance and improving knowledge retention among medical students. A wide range of factors cumulatively determine the learning styles of medical students, and as educators, we must take into account these potential factors, which often act in combination. In conclusion, understanding and accommodating different learning styles play an instrumental role in aiding educators customize their instructional methods and materials to meet the diversified needs of medical students, which is crucial to develop an inclusive learning environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Humanitarian emergencies such as man-made conflicts tend to influence and impact every aspect of human lives, including medical education. Humanitarian emergencies accounts for far-reaching consequences in the domain of medical education, including disruption of educational infrastructure (viz. medical school and training facilities) that significantly hampers the delivery of medical education. There is an immense need to plan and prepare for these humanitarian emergencies and thereby implement appropriate measures to ensure that delivery of medical education is not disturbed. To conclude, humanitarian emergencies have become quite common in today's era. However, as the impact of these emergencies on medical education is multi-fold, there is an immense need to address the problem. In-fact, the need of the hour is to plan and implement a multi-pronged approach to ensure that despite the challenges posed by humanitarian emergencies, we are well-equipped to ensure medical education delivery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The syllabus in the medical curriculum is extremely vast, and in order to attain the intended learning competencies, students have to take intensive efforts to continue or expedite the learning process. Learning in itself is a complex process, as a number of factors play their part to ensure that a medical student can understand and apply the concepts or even perform the skills/procedures. In general, factors affecting the learning process have been broadly categorized into intrinsic (viz. Learning style) and extrinsic (such as learning environment and support from teachers). It becomes extremely crucial that teachers should be aware of these differences to ensure that learning can be facilitated among both types of students. To conclude, a number of factors are responsible to impact the learning acquisition process among medical students. It is important that a teacher should be aware of these wide gamut of factors, so that they can play a defining role in neutralizing some of these factors and encourage students to continue to learn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The manner in which a doctor approach patient care significantly depends on the way in which they were trained during their undergraduation period. The purpose of the current review is to explore the necessity to incorporate One Health competencies in the medical curriculum and devise a framework for the same. An extensive search of all materials related to the topic was carried out on the PubMed search engine and a total of 14 articles were selected based on their suitability with the current review objectives. Keywords used in the search include One Health and medical education in the title alone only. The analysis of the major outbreaks of infectious diseases in the last couple of decades has shown an association with environmental changes. The presence of all these factors has compelled the international welfare agencies and public health authorities to adopt a One Health approach in medical curriculum to integrate humans, animals, and the ecosystem for the containment of these infectious diseases. To ensure that the current crop of medical students who will be joining the health workforce on completion of their training should be trained in different aspects of one health during their undergraduation period. In conclusion, the training of medical students on the One Health approach is an essential aspect of medical training considering the trends of outbreaks of infectious disease outbreaks. It is high time to acknowledge the need and prepare medical students to work as effective members of the interprofessional team and accordingly incorporate One Health competencies into the medical curriculum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Curriculum refers to the complete range of student experiences to which they will be exposed in the educational process. For any curriculum, communicability and transparency have been regarded as the crucial aspects. An extensive search of all materials related to the topic was carried out in the PubMed search engine, and a total of six articles were selected based upon the suitability with the current review objectives and analyzed. Curriculum mapping has been identified as the method to ensure communicability and transparency, but it also plays an important role in bridging the gaps between the declared, taught, and tested curriculum. The mapping helps establish a relationship between various components of the curriculum and is the key strategy to ascertain the accomplishment of learning objectives or outcomes formulated for any curriculum. In conclusion, the process of curriculum mapping in the field of medical education has been acknowledged as an effective strategy to facilitate evaluation, rapid improvement, and evolution of the curriculum and thus improve the educational outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global trends reveal that the currently available estimates of obesity have become almost three times when compared with the estimates in the year 1975. Even children have not been spared of this threat and close to 39 million children in the under-5 age group were overweight or obese. Even though a wide range of factors determines the prevalence of childhood overweight or obesity in a region, the findings of a recently released report from the European region have emphasized the digital marketing of foods rich in fats, salt, and sugars to children. There is no doubt that the food marketing industry has played a defining role in aggravating the problem by ensuring the promotion of obesogenic food items in such a way that they are cheaper, more visible, and easily available in contrast to healthy foods. To conclude, among the lack of appropriate regulations to control digital marketing, the epidemic of childhood obesity is going to increase further. It is the need of the hour to understand the importance of the issue and bridge the existing gaps to minimize the burden of childhood obesity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Meningitis is a life-threatening and incapacitating condition that has been associated with significant amounts of fear, predominantly because of the high case fatality rate. Meningitis is one of the vaccine-preventable diseases, nevertheless, we significantly lack in our efforts directed toward the containment of the infection when compared with other diseases for which vaccines are available. Acknowledging the magnitude of the disease, the ability of the infection to result in a fatal outcome, and the availability of potent and effective vaccines, the World Health Organization (WHO) has formulated a road map to contain meningitis infection. To conclude, meningitis is a global public health concern and has been associated with a wide range of detrimental sequels. The need of the hour is that we join our hands together and work in collaboration with the community toward the successful elimination of meningitis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pregnancy is a physiological condition and is expected to bring joy to the lives of individuals and their family. The available global estimates suggest that almost 50% of the reported pregnancies around the world are unintended. We must note that unintended pregnancies pose a major health risk to women, including a higher risk of maternal deaths, and adverse health and financial outcomes for family and society. Moreover, it is a fact that the delivery of contraceptive services, measures targeting sexual and reproductive health needs of women, and access to life-saving health services during humanitarian crisis takes a toll. In general, women are subjected to gender-based violence, including sexual violence and various types of intimate partner violence in the regions that are experiencing conflict. There is an immense need to strengthen the delivery of contraceptives, including condoms, so that such unintended pregnancies can be averted. To conclude, unintended pregnancy is a major public health burden and has been associated with a wide range of adverse outcomes, especially in settings experiencing a humanitarian crisis. The need of the hour is to take specific measures to reduce the incidence of unintended pregnancy and adopt a multi-sectoral approach to improve the quality of life of women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The field of medicine is advancing with each day and therefore the process of producing a competent medical professional becomes a significant one. The findings of multiple studies have revealed that a significant proportion of medical students are using their phones for the purpose of acquisition of knowledge and information and that too whenever they need it. The mobile phones in the field of medical education can be broadly used in two ways, namely the use of internet and various application, and the use of those items that have been stored in phones for ready reference by the students. Furthermore, the use of the mobile phones has significantly increased during the ongoing pandemic and has helped the teachers and students to continue the process of learning and assessment during these difficult times. To conclude, mobile phones have attained an important status in the entire process of medical education delivery. It is up to all of us that we understand the ways in which we can use mobile technology in the best interest of the students and patient care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article assesses the existing challenges and the potential solutions to developing research skills in medical education. Problems include limited number of research opportunities, lack of resources, and assessment of research skills. Solutions include exposure to research activities, research as an elective course, and administrative support.

The learning which happens in the case of an adult learner, including the medical students occurs in a wide variety of ways and is influenced by multiple factors. Experiential learning, as the name suggests, refers to the learning process that occurs through experience, and can be better understood as the learning via reflection on doing. The basic concept of experiential learning is that it facilitates learning in terms of a direct experience of an individual student, which may occur within or beyond the classroom settings. An undergraduate medical student can get benefited from experiential learning right from the early stages of training, upon exposure to clinical settings, during the internship, and even in their period of residency. In conclusion, experiential learning is an innovative form of learning that advocates for the acquisition of knowledge, improvement in interpersonal or communication skills through experience. The best part is that it helps in the gradual progression of the student right from the early stages of their learning till the period of residency and even after. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hepatitis C has been acknowledged as one of the global public health concerns owing to its universal distribution, high incidence, impaired quality of life, and associated life threatening complications, including death. The need to have an urgent public health response is further emphasized by the fact they tend to cast a major financial burden on the community. Considering the huge burden of the chronic infections, it is high time that the access to affordable testing and treatment is given due importance. However, as with any other program, the success of the program requires sustained financial support and simultaneous investments have to be done for innovations, including the development of vaccines. Further, efforts have to be taken to increase the awareness about the disease and mobilization of resources. In conclusion, in order to prevent and control the disease and to meet the proposed targets, the need of the hour is to foster linkage with all the stakeholders and scale up the screening, diagnosis, care and treatment services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]