Forensic - AETCOM to medical undergraduates: A journey from introduction to evaluation

Abstract

Since ancient time the philosophy is not just to treat a disease but to treat an individual as whole. Knowledge and skills have their  significant value in the treatment of patient but attitude, ethics and communication are important if a health professional wish to treat  an individual. So, it becomes vital that our medical students shall inculcate and develop these attributes in their habit of offering  patient care. Health professionals are healer and that role cannot be play effectively without acquiring soft skills like attitude, ethics  and communication. Lack of these soft skills may be one of the important reasons for violence against health care professionals. So,  there is a strong need of explicit formal but structured curriculum to teach attitude, ethics and communication. Looking into the above  background, Medical Council of India (MCI) came out with AETCOM [Attitude, Ethics and Communication] booklet and  incorporated this module in Graduate Medical Education Regulation [GMER 2019] across the phases. The department of Forensic  Medicine & Toxicology at our institute has introduced this module including use of role play. After successful implementation of the  module, students' perceptions were collected, evaluated and analyzed for the purpose of this study. They perceived that this method  motivates them for active learning process as well as to build better understanding for relevance of the aspects. Students have also  appreciated teaching learning approach used by facilitators for delivering these contents. They have mentioned that method of  teaching, pattern of presentation; example explanation and interactivity even in the large group and involving them in the process  were extremely useful in their view for better understanding of soft skills. Overall, it's a very good initiative by Medical Council of  India but implementation and monitoring will certainly tell the impact of this module.