Unique aspect of medical education in India
One unique aspect of medical education in India is the inclusion of Community Medicine. The course initially starts in the first year of medical school. It then continues on in the second year, and finishes with a final exam in the third year. The course revolved around Preventive Medicine and Social Medicine. This was taught through either standard classroom lectures or through village and center visits.
The topics covered in Preventive Medicine included many concepts. Specifically health and disease, nutrition, immunization schedules, screening guidelines, epidemiology, and biostatistics. These were followed by communicable diseases, types of prevention, communication, disease prevention, and environmental health problems. The need for this course is very necessary to be taught to doctors studying in a developing country. This is critical as some graduates pursue a profession in community medicine. This is true because many health risks exist due to a lack of communication between the doctor and the patient.
One big obstacle of safe medical care in lower-income communities is of illiteracy. Outdated practices are slowly going away. They include applying cow dung onto an umbilical cord for “healing purposes.” In addition, rejecting colostrum during breastfeeding because it is a “different color” and “not good for the baby”. This is due to the preventive medicine doctors going to lower-income communities and explaining basic health concepts in simple terms. Thus, preventing the former decreases cases of tetany, and preventing the latter increases the nutrition of a neonate.
Community medicine
Community medicine is very important because some people lack access or financial means to healthcare facilities. A prophylactic intervention needs to start from the very beginning of a child’s birth. Midwives, nurses, and doctors are all trained to both teach and provide proper health hygiene for a newborn. The proper “Kangaroo Care” with having the baby latch and breastfeed properly is a successful initiative for preventing illnesses.
This includes making vaccinations readily available and relatively cheap for people residing in these communities. Many programs have been implemented in order to vaccinate as many children as possible in order to develop strong herd immunity in the community to prevent communicable diseases from spreading. This is particularly important for a developing country like India, as it is the second most populated country on Earth and soon to be the most populated country on Earth in a couple of years.
With such a large population waste management is important as well. One of the biggest problems in India is certain communicable diseases spread by parasites, bugs, and mosquitoes. Unfortunately, some mosquitoes will lay eggs in the discarded water bottles (because they need a moist environment) that are next to the homes of people. Preventive tactics such as throwing trash into trash cans and using mosquito spray and nets have helped reduce the incidence of cases of diseases such as Malaria and Dengue significantly.
Infections and disease transmission
Bacterial infections and disease transmission from fecal matter and waste is a serious issue that has current new developments for proper sanitary toilets to be built for entire villages. Chlorination processes and drinking clean water are also being done to reduce drinking water that is potentially contaminated and that can potentially lead to gastrointestinal infections.
Luckily, India (and the entire world in general) has made significant improvements that ultimately cause less morbidity and mortality in lower-income communities. Carrying out proper health hygiene starts at the individual level first and health communication is the first thing that needs to occur for any change to take place. Immunizations and pharmaceuticals are more readily available than ever for anyone living in India. Proper nutrition such as tracking calories and eating the right proportion of each essential nutrient and vitamin has gotten better and I hope to continue to get even better so India one day can have a healthy population in the long term.