Impact of assessment of medical students in India on assuring quality primary care.

Abstract

Medical education in India was introduced by the British several decades ago. Since that time, it has been on the path of evolution, albeit rather slowly. Several changes have been made at regular intervals to the curricula of undergraduate medical teaching, including shortening the duration of basic sciences training, introducing vertical and horizontal integration, and early clinical exposure. However, the basic teaching methodologies and assessment techniques have barely been subjected to any form of reform whatsoever. The quality of medical education in the Indian system, apart from its direct impact on quality of medical professionals in India, has global implications as a large proportion of doctors who emerge from the country’s medical schools migrate to the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and other countries.1 Does the present Indian system of assessment ensure that quality primary care physicians emerge from medical schools and get licensed to provide a basic minimum standard of care?