Let me first profusely thank the Academy of Health Professions Educators (AHPE) for nominating me as President of this prestigious organisation that is tirelessly working for improving quality medical education across the country.
From the time of my tenure as Vice Chancellor of the Maharashtra University of Health Sciences (MUHS), I have been passionately pursuing the implementation of competency-based medical education (CBME). We took several steps to start this reform in the MUHS and we had taken efforts to have faculty development in CBME under the guidance of Dr NG Patil. The MUHS was first to take curricular initiatives in competency-based medical education.
We need to congratulate the Board of Governors (BoG), Medical Council of India (MCI) for starting the long-awaited CBME programme in the MBBS course which was envisioned in the Vision 2015 document, and introducing reforms accordingly. The CBME committee of MCI under the chairmanship of Dr Avinash Supe has done an enormous job by creating the whole curriculum with all its microdetails. The MCI was able to start this programme in year 2019 in a phased manner. Because of the efforts of the committee, faculty development required for CBME is being done systematically through MCI-recognized nodal and regional centres all across the country.
I am happy that this dream and passion of all medical educationists across the country is being fulfilled. Now, it is the turn of us AHPE members, as the biggest pool of medical educationists in the country, to rededicate ourselves for effective implementation of CBME across the country.
We need to communicate to the BoG and the forthcoming National Medical commission to assure our assistance and co-operation for the implementation, especially once phase 2 and phase 3 (para-clinical and clinical subjects) will be introduced.
Recently, the BoG has declared the EXIT examination. The next important step will be to study and research assessment of medical graduates to thoroughly prepare for EXIT exam after 5 years. Research need to be done develop a model for the exam process, and convince legal experts and other concerned authorities for having multiple question paper-based exams at different centres across the country. We, as medical educationists, need to work on getting away from the recall system, and implement question papers which have questions which are creative and promote analytical skills.
Technology for implementing CBME as well as evaluation needs to introduced. India being a software nation, does not have a dearth of talent in this regard. Therefore, this challenge must be undertaken.
Students are our important stakeholders. We should start a Student Wing to get a 360° feedback from students for reforms in medical education and make our education system more student-centered.
Since we are an Academy of Health Professions Educators, we need to work towards developing interdisciplinary collaborations and dialogue, particularly with respect to technology, for dental, nursing, physiotherapy and AYUSH education.
All this will continue to develop through AHPE webinars, newsletters, academic linkages, creating distance learning modules and strengthening the role and participation of Health Science Universities by involving their Vice Chancellors.
I am proud to have a dedicated Executive Committee and wish to thank them for the time they contribute to AHPE. With their support and an active AHPE membership, we need well-planned and coordinated efforts to convert this dream into a reality.
Dr Arun Jamkar
