What We Miss in Medical School: Anuradha Totey (ed)

Excerpt

Medical schools in India train the student to gain basic knowledge and practical experience in dealing with curative, preventive and to some extent, rehabilitative care of the patient. The first four and a half years are devoted to mostly imparting knowledge and understanding of various subjects of medical sciences. The last one year of internship training comprises of working under supervision to acquire skills and hands-on training in management of common problems encountered in day-to-day practice. However, most of the medical graduates during internship are busy preparing for their National eligibility entrance test (NEET) for postgraduate entrance and lack proper skill training. There are several aspects of managing a patient which includes proper communication and counselling, doctor-patient relationship, proper documentation and record keeping and medico-legal aspects etc. In the span of five and a half years of training as a medical graduate and even in postgraduate training, it is more of science rather than art of medicine which gets importance in the curriculum. As a result, doctors are always at the receiving end of getting abused and mishandled by clients as they are not well equipped with the above skills of management and to save themselves from the media as well as public bashing. With ever increasing aggressive behavior of clients and litigations against the profession, it is very important to learn various aspects of soft skills for effective patient management. …