The need of modifying current undergraduate curriculum in pathology subject from student's perspective

Abstract

Background: The main goals of second professional MBBS pathology teaching are to provide a framework for the description of disease and to provide students with knowledge of the functional and structural changes in disease in order that clinical signs and symptoms are often understood and interpreted. Aims: It was a cross-sectional, descriptive study which aimed to find out the importance of pathology subject in MBBS curriculum as well as to assess the students perception regarding subject understanding, teaching methodology, and assessment criteria. Materials and Methods: Two hundred and sixteen students of 2nd MBBS who had already completed 1st year and were about to appear in the university examination in the year 2020 were included. An extensive questionnaire was prepared regarding 2nd year pathology teaching. The feedback from the students was obtained and analyzed the SPSS software version 17.0. Results: 30.05% students found pathology subject as an interesting, 46.75% found it to be lengthy, whereas remaining (13.80%) found it as not only interesting but also lengthy as well and 9.4% found it boring and difficult. 70.8% students were able to apply the knowledge gained in the 1st year while studying pathology. 76.7% students responded that knowledge gained in pathology helped them in clinical postings. 53.2% students opined that combination of teaching methods helped them for better understanding of subject. Written and viva voce examination was helpful for 74.14% and 79.62%, respectively, to evaluate them. Conclusion: Our study has emphasized the importance of pathology as a subject for understanding the clinical subject. As competency-based curriculum is starting from 2019 batch and onward, this elaborative study can act as a baseline to get access to the effectiveness of new curriculum in coming years.