Wednesday, October 4, 2023

Faculty reverie on learning ecosystem optimization

We consultants, PGs, interns, UGs are all part of a system that needs optimization. 



Looking back to when I was a PG (we didn't have UGs or interns in that program), I realize the only way I learned Medicine was to make a log of what were the patient events on meticulous history and my examination findings. 



Computers or internet were a rarity and most of our learning happened on the patient's file  (analogous to our current PaJR groups) where as PGs our job was to meticulously record everything on the file and I remember getting feedback from my seniors during my causalty postings through my file notes. 


We had continuous casualty and EMD ward postings for a month, where we did all procedures that are done here in ICU and there was no separate department of EMD. 


I still remember feeling nice when seniors appreciated my line drawings of the clinical images that I sketched in my file case reports before I transferred my patients from the casualty and I have forgotten the toxicity that I faced from them although there is a theory that perhaps that toxicity that I encountered myself as a trainee doctor may have gone a long way to subconsciously shape my own current toxicity! 


What I witness now in the PGs is that the task that we thought most important for our post graduate intellectual development, that of learning asynchronously through the paper based ecosystem by working hard to log our own inputs in the paper based files has been relegated to the UGs and interns by the current PGs who are not even realizing what a vital component of their training they are missing! 



As a result we are forced to treat the interns as our PGs because the PGs cannot possibly present anything useful in the rounds if they haven't made any effort to develop their knowledge of patient's particular requirements! 


Off course even if we are forced to treat the UGs and interns that way they are allowed by the curriculum to spend too less time to learn and contribute anything substantial. 


A simple overhaul of medical training into the previous apprenticeship pattern that is currently threatened by a decadent, static, theory driven curriculum all over India can go a long way to solve the problem



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