An overview of electives in community medicine: A giant leap ahead

Dear Editor,

A student trained in Community Medicine should develop the ability to inculcate a holistic view of health and medical interventions that primarily focus on a community’s health. In line with the above, the competency-based undergraduate MBBS program has introduced electives to cope with the constraints of expanding knowledge while having a limited study period through experiential learning.^[1] The key objectives of electives are to allow the learner to explore, discover, and experience a diverse learning experience and to do research that will stimulate inquiry, self-directed, experiential learning, and lateral thinking.^[1-4]

The structure of electives in Community Medicine is built in such a way that the students will be able to choose the learning experience from Community Medicine in both the blocks under Community Outreach experience and research in Block 1 and Urban or Rural community experience in Block 2, as shown in Table 1.^[2]

Table 1: - Block 1 and block 2 learning experience in community medicine

Block 1	1. Community outreach experience	Assisted living
		Hospice care
		School health programs
		Community outreach for National Health Program
		Maternal and child health outreach
	2. Research	Student-initiated research a
		Participation in faculty research a
		Community and epidemiological surveys
Block 2	Urban or rural community experience	Rural community health center
		Primary health center
		Corporation health clinic
		Selected private primary care clinic

^aElectives which are not exclusive to Community Medicine alone.

The process of selection and implementation of electives is depicted in Figure 1. Preceptors are facilitators, who will be responsible for the conduct of electives, and they will be allotted a minimal number of students to supervise and guide directly. Before the start of the elective, predefined work, presentation, and writing plan should be finalized by the student and the preceptor. The preceptor acts as a liaison officer and coordinates with external institutions and community clinics wherever applicable. Students can enroll in a new research project or participate in preexisting faculty research projects.^[2]

Figure 1:: Process of selection and implementation of electives

Submission of log book with 75% attendance in both the blocks separately is mandatory for successful completion of elective and to appear in the final MBBS examination. Apart from the entry of daily academic activities in the logbook, the student’s experiences, observations, reflections, and presentations may be added as annexures. Challenges anticipated in elective programs are that students may be allotted under a different stream other than the one they are interested considering the National Medical Commission Norm of six students to be accommodated in each elective, identification of places for certain newer areas such as assisted living and hospice care, framing of time-bound objectives for the same, unavailability of a specialty in relevance to community outreach experience in an institute for which there is high demand among students, and overall safety when posted in rural and urban community health center must be taken care to avoid any untoward events.^[1,2] To summarize, an elective program’s success lies in the organizing team’s hands, and the faculty members should be well-oriented about the program, so they can sensitize the students effectively. Overall, electives in Community Medicine must be correctly planned and regularly updated with inputs from stakeholders, because it can potentially improve vocational skills among budding doctors and is a giant leap ahead.

Financial support and sponsorship

Nil.

Conflicts of interest

There are no conflicts of interest.