From his autobiography and other's testimonies:
1) CBME procedural competence in surgical dressing and administration of medicines:
"His early experience in healthcare started when his father was suffering from a fistula; he was one of the attendants to his father. He had duties, which mainly consisted in dressing the wound, giving medicine to his father and compounding drugs whenever they had to be made up at home. Gandhi was thus initiated into medical service!"
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2) AETCOM CBME cognitive competence in helping patients and prompt referral for further help:
From his Autobiography, “The question of further simplifying my life and of doing some concrete act of service to my fellowmen had been constantly agitating me, when a leper came to my door. I had not the heart to dismiss him with a meal. So I offered him shelter, dressed his wounds, and began to look after him.” But later he was sent to the government hospital for indentured labourers. He further said, “I longed for some humanitarian work of a permanent nature."
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3) AETCOM CBME cognitive competence in history taking and case presentation as well as perceiving healthcare as a calling and finding mental peace as a currency for job satisfaction:
"The work of dispensing medicines took from one or two hours daily, and I made up my mind to find that time from my office work, so as to be able to fill the place of a compounder in the dispensary attached to the hospital… This work brought me some peace. It consisted in ascertaining the patient's complaints, laying the facts before the doctor and dispensing the prescriptions. It brought me in close touch with suffering Indians…”
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4) CBME procedural competence in Obstetrics:
"There was no time to summon a doctor or nurse because Kasturba got the labour pain so suddenly and the birth came quickly. Once again the birth was difficult but this time Gandhi delivered the baby safely all by himself! Devadas, Gandhi's last son, was born on May 23, 1900. Gandhi said, “The birth of the last child put me to the severest test. The travail came on suddenly. I had to see through the safe delivery of the baby. My careful study of the subject in Dr. Tribhuvandas’ work was of inestimable help. I was not nervous."
5) AETCOM cognitive and procedural competence in Infectious disease epidemic management:
South Africa 1904 , Sjt. Madanjit sent a note to Gandhi saying, “There has been a sudden outbreak of the black plague. You must come immediately and take prompt measures, otherwise we must be prepared for dire consequences. Please come immediately.” The municipality thanked him for this prompt action and supplied him with disinfectants and also sent a nurse. He gave medical aid and cleaned the patient's beds, sat by their bedside at night and cheered them up."
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5) CBME procedural competence in Patient transport and administration of medications:
"Gandhi recollected the services rendered in the Boer War, “We soon got work and that too harder than we had expected. To carry the wounded seven or eight miles was part of our ordinary routine. But sometimes we had to carry badly wounded soldiers and officers over a distance of twenty-five miles. The march would commence at eight in the morning, medicines must be administered on the way, and we were required to reach the base-hospital at five. This was very hard work indeed.”
6) AETCOM CBME procedural competence in silent service driven empathic communication:
"The good Doctor told us that he could not induce Europeans to nurse the Zulus, that it was beyond his power to compel them and that he would feel obliged if we undertook this mission of mercy. We were only too glad to do this. We had to cleanse the wounds of several Zulus which had not been attended to for as many as five or six days and were therefore stinking horribly. We liked the work. The Zulus could not talk to us, but from their gestures and the expression of their eyes they seemed to feel as if God had sent us to their succour.”
7) CBME competence in actionable empathic buy in of a doctor patient relationship:
"Gandhi had a glum, ferocious, uncommunicative African jail mate attendant. One day, he was stung by a scorpion. He was screaming like anything and Gandhi saw this intolerable pain. He immediately took the African's hand and washed it clean and he started sucking the injured area. He was extracting the poisoned blood as much as he could and spitting out. He was relieved from pain. Gandhi applied tincture and bandaged his arm. He became Gandhi's devotee thereafter."
8) CBME cognitive competence in observing procedures (see one, do one, teach one, skipping the latter two):
"Noted in Gandhi's diary on May 15, 1947, “Manu has a severe stomach-ache, she also had vomiting and is running temperature. I therefore called in the doctors who examined her. Manu's complaint was diagnosed as appendicitis. I had her removed to the hospital immediately. She will be operated upon at night. Watched Manu's operation at the hospital. Mridula and Madu were keeping her company. But they were not allowed inside the operation theatre. I had put on a surgical mask and watched the whole operation."
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9) CBME competence in medical decision making (such as to operate or not to operate):
In the letter to Jaisukhlal Gandhi, father of Manubehn Gandhi, on the next day, Gandhi said, “I had suspected even in Delhi that it was appendicitis. I had hoped that treatment with mud-pack would help her to get well. But it did not help her sufficiently. I, therefore, called in the doctors yesterday. They advised an operation, and I therefore got her operated upon.”
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10) Competence in making career choices:
"It was Gandhiji's elder brother who dissuaded him from pursuing medicine because he said their father would have disapproved of the decision; since the Gandhis were Vaishnavas, they would have nothing to do with dead bodies. His brother suggested instead, it would be wiser to study law and become a barrister, which is what Gandhiji did."
"Later though, even as he practised law, Mahatma Gandhi continued thinking about visiting London to study medicine. However, in 1909, he wrote to a friend saying he had heard from certain doctors that they had killed about fifty frogs while studying medicine. He said, if so, he had no desire to do the same, because he neither wanted to kill nor dissect frogs."
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11) CBME competence in enterprise and innovation:
"With the help of three colleagues, Gandhiji put all the patients in a vacant house and took on the role of both doctor and nurse. Even though they did not have the means needed to manage a situation of this magnitude, they did all that they could to help. The Council, on their part, provided a vacant godown for the patients; however, this building was unkempt and filthy. Gandhiji and his colleagues not only cleaned up the building, they also raised money to buy a few beds and other necessary things by reaching out to charitable Indians. Soon, an improvised temporary hospital was set up. The local authorities sent a nurse, who arrived with brandy and other hospital equipment. Instructions were given to provide frequent doses of brandy to the patients. Gandhi had no faith in the beneficial effects of brandy and, with the permission of Dr. Godfrey, who was the doctor in charge, he put three patients who were prepared to forego brandy under the earth treatment, which required applying wet earth bandages on their heads and chests. Two of these patients survived. The other twenty died in the godown. Gandhiji said it was impossible to ascertain how the two patients who had agreed to the earth treatment were saved, but this incident enhanced his faith in the earth treatment as well as strengthened his skepticism for the efficacy of brandy as a medicine."
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12) CBME competence in putting prevention above treatment:
"I overeat, I have indigestion, I go to a doctor, he gives me medicine. I am cured, I overeat again, and I take his pills again. Had I not taken the pills in the first instance, I would have suffered the punishment deserved by me, and I would not have overeaten again. The doctor intervened and helped me to indulge myself. My body thereby certainly felt more at ease, but my mind became weakened."
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13) CBME Competence in designing rural medical learning and practice centers:
"He said the halls for treatment and experiment should be surrounded by huts that could serve as residences for patients and children who were being treated there. He also said the sanatorium should grow fruits, flowers, food grains and vegetables, that it should have cattle sheds and roads good enough for vehicles. He also suggested having a gymnasium, a tank for bathing and other facilities. Gandhiji said it was best to avoid procedures that required electricity, such as hot and cold water and steam regimens."
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1-9 points above have been quoted from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.
1. Bandopadhyaya A. Bahuroopi Gandhi. Popular Prakashan, Bombay. 1964 [Google Scholar]
2. Gandhi A. Mumbai: Jaico Publishing House; 2000. Untold Story of Kasturba. [Google Scholar]
3. Gandhi M. New Delhi: Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Govt. of India; The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi; p. 20002001. [Google Scholar]
4. Gandhi MK. Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House; 1927. An Autobiography or The Story of My Experiments with Truth. [Google Scholar]
10-13 have been quoted from:
Notes:
Abbreviations used:
Competency-based medical education (CBME).
CBME is an outcomes-based approach to the design, implementation, and evaluation of education programs and to the assessment of learners across the continuum that uses competencies or observable abilities. The goal of CBME is to ensure that all learners achieve the desired patient-centered outcomes during their training.
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https://www.aamc.org/about-us/
AETCOM: An Indian abbreviation coined by the Indian medical council, a medical education regulatory body, which stands for Attitude, Ethics and Communication and is designed as (AETCOM) modules to develop a foundation of positive attitude, ethics and communication in the Indian medical graduate.
"Gandhi was able to walk about 79000 km in his lifetime which comes to an average of 18 km per day and is equivalent to walking around the earth twice."
Past lectures on "Indian informal healthcare" , Patient centered CBME as a game changer, Generalism in medical education and The ultimate "role playing in education" in the search box in our departmental website here: medicinedepartment.blogspot.
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