In November 2022, AIIMS – Kalyani invited me to deliver a lecture at their Foundation Course for I MBBS students. I was delighted. For QMed, while MBBS students were always a priority, it is becoming more so since the recent years. We are very sure that what we teach must be taught in the UG stage. PG students, Residents and professionals show interest in what we teach, but often set a low priority in learning. The interesting part is that once they go through the learning, their feedback is “I wish I had learnt this earlier”
For the students at AIIMS Kalyani – since they had just joined the MBBS course, I just spoke about the need to read much beyond textbooks in their career. I taught them some fundamental steps in online searching. Importantly I stressed that they had three broad choices in their career – Academics, Practice, and Research. I stressed further that whichever they chose, they definitely needed to understand research, learn to find the best research online and learn how to appraise the same.
I told them about our ELearning courses and that they should consider finishing them before they finished their MBBS. This would make a big difference when they started handling patients and also for their PG thesis
In December, I was happy to receive an invitation from Grant Medical College & JJ Hospital for the same program! This time, being in Mumbai it was a live session and I was able to involve the audience in some tests. They were very enthusiastic and got well involved (not surprising!). But the best part is that at the end of the session, a student came to me and said that she would like to do research in Cancers as she lost her grandmother to cancer. I could see that she was still upset by the grandmother’s demise and she had a strong reason to want to do research.
I told her that she needed to study all the stuff taught in the MBBS program as the foundations needed to be strong. And then read as many articles as she can about cancers. Then discuss with her teachers about how to first do some basic research and then move on. I hope she got encouraged and embarks on her research learning journey soon
If I encouraged one MBBS student to get interested in research – that feels good. If all of them have understood the value of understanding research – then I have achieved a lot!
And now – I plan to record the lecture and share it with as many medical colleges as possible.
