New module for MBBS to prepare doctors for Covid-like pandemics

Tribune News Service

Faridkot, August 27

To enable the medical graduates (MBBS pass-outs) to be prepared for Covid-19 like pandemics, the Medical Council of India (MCI) on Thursday introduced a new module for the course.

The module is aimed at enabling the graduates to be prepared to understand, investigate, treat and prevent new and emerging diseases.

Dr VK Paul, Chairman, Board of Governors of the MCI, in his foreword to 75-page Module on Pandemic Management released today, said the emergence of Covid-19 and its rapid spread across the globe had underlined the need to develop such skills in medical graduates. The new module had been designed to ensure that the MBBS students acquired competence in handling not only the illness but also the social, legal and other issues arising from the outbreak of such disease. It was expected that the new longitudinal module, extending from foundation course to the final year of MBBS, would help in ensuring the creation of a doctor who would serve humanity as a leader and healer in bleak times such as the occurrence of a pandemic, he added.

The module has been created by a team of 12 experts. In the 80-hour module, to be taught during the entire course of MBBS, the students will be taught about the history of outbreaks, epidemics and pandemics, infection control and practices, like hand washing, decontamination, use of PPEs, infection control, air-borne precautions, contact precautions, emerging and re-emerging infections, early identification and control of new infections, sample collection, microbial diagnosis, serologic tests and their performance parameters, vaccination strategies, including vaccine development and implementation, therapeutic strategies, including new drug development, outbreak management, including quarantine, isolation, contact tracing, care of patients during pandemics, emergency procedures, death-related management, communications and media management, intensive care management and palliative care during pandemics.

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