Role of basic sciences in making of a clinician: Perspectives of medical students from North India

BACKGROUND: Advances in scientific research necessitates updating of the curriculum and the Medical Council of India now Board of Governors have proposed a new competency-based undergraduate curriculum for the Indian Medical Graduate. The authors wanted the views of medical students about basic sciences teaching in the form of feedback, their perceptions and attitudes toward the basic sciences and their opinions about the relevance of these subjects, and finally any ideas about improvement in teaching of basic sciences. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The present cross-sectional study was conducted in two medical colleges of Northern India and 250 medical students from each medical school were the study participants. Students of the 1(st) year were not included, but interns were included. A pretested questionnaire having twenty questions with answers in the form of “yes” and “no” was used. Chi-square was the test of significance. RESULTS: Almost all the participants considered the basic sciences as an integral part of medical curriculum and a higher number of Government Medical College respondents opined that their knowledge made it easier to understand clinical subjects (P < 0.05). However, higher proportion of ASCOMS (Acharya Shri Chandra College Medical Sciences) of respondents emphasized that the focus should be on clinical subjects and that current student–teacher ratio be increased (P < 0.05). Majority of the respondents labeled Anatomy having the immense syllabus, while Physiology was designated as more relevant and having a better recall during clinical discourse (P > 0.05). CONCLUSION: Basic sciences lay strong foundation for subsequent clinical learning. Medical education is best taught with hybrid use of lectures, tutorial, group discussions, audio-visual aids, and integrated teaching. The new proposed competency-based curriculum and the Attitudes, Ethics and Communication Module are likely to improve the overall medical education and health-care scenario.