Redefining The Goal Of Medical Education

The noble profession of healing the sick and preventing outbreak of illnesses is badly hampered by shortage of medical professionals. What is the way out?

- Prof. V. K Shukla & Dr. Kiran R. Giri

Education is not only a word; it means giving someone right to live with dignity and pride. Medical education is an opportunity to serve the society and humanity. Rightly said by Aristotle ‘We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit’.

This is the main reason why we call medical profession a practice. We do it every day and make ourselves perfect for the coming patient. When we are talking about education even the responsibility is realized with it, and with medical education we are dealing with lives of many people coming in contact with us so the responsibility grows exponentially, they are dependent on us to cure then.

India’s legacy

Medical Education is an ancient tradition of India. From childhood thousands of eyes dream of becoming a doctor to make their parents proud, to serve society. In the era of competition, one of the toughest competitions is faced by the medical aspirants to get seat in the medical colleges, from millions only few are able to fulfil their dream to be a doctor and live with it.

When we talk about demand and supply, question arises whether we want a supply of doctors or we want a supply of competent doctors to serve the society with skill, knowledge and confidence to treat the patients. When we were young, doctor was synonym of trust. Family physician is a vanishing concept nowadays and is replaced by the super specialist concept. As soon as the student finishes MBBS, the next challenge in front of him/her is to get through NEET PG.

Increasing number of colleges, seats