Introduction and Implementation of Early Clinical Exposure in Undergraduate Medical Training to Enhance Learning

CONTEXT: Conventional medical curricula have created an impenetrable wall between the preclinical and clinical years of training, thus submerging relevance of basic sciences in clinical setup. Recently, the Medical Council of India has introduced a number of changes and updates in the medical education, including “early clinical exposure” (ECE) in newly proposed competency-based medical education. ECE does not replace the basic and clinical sciences but enriches and contextualizes that learning, therefore motivating the students to develop a better insight into medical profession. AIMS: (1) To develop a protocol for the introduction of ECE in undergraduate medical training, (2) to validate and to deliver it to the 1(st) year MBBS students and assess their perceptions. SETTINGS AND DESIGN: It was a prospective, nonrandomized, interventional study. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: After taking permission from the institutional research committee and institutional ethical committee, a protocol for the introduction of ECE in Biochemistry was developed. The feedback questionnaire for the students and the faculty and retro-preself-efficacy questionnaire for the students were designed and validated. The ECE protocol was delivered to 143 1(st)-year MBBS students, and perceptions of concerned were collected and analyzed. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS USED: Collected data were analyzed in terms of percentages, medians, and satisfaction index and were represented in graphs. RESULTS: Students reported that the ECE session was an enjoyable, satisfactory, and effective learning tool, with the improvement in knowledge, retention, attention, and motivation. Students also reported that this method of teaching–learning should be implemented in other topics as well as in other subjects of the first professional course. CONCLUSIONS: ECE protocol was perceived as very satisfactory by the students, and it helped in improvement of knowledge and to understand the relevance of preclinical subject in clinical setup.