Medical students' and faculty experience in learning and teaching family medicine in Vellore

The first family medicine training programme for medical students in India began at Christian Medical College (CMC), Vellore in 2005 as a two-week programme. Currently, it includes two mandatory and one elective programme along with one to two weeks during the internship. In this study, the authors examined the impact of the mandatory programmes in family medicine through the feedback of medical students and the faculty experience. The aim of the authors was to examine the impact on medical students based on their feedback and the experience of faculty in teaching family medicine. This paper reports a retrospective evaluation based on the feedback of third-year medical students after their mandatory programmes in 2018. The authors collected students' feedback using questionnaires and recorded the faculty experience through a focus-group discussion (FGD) and in-depth interview. Overall attendance of students was 50-60%. About 75% of students who filled in the questionnaire felt the programme to be relevant to their future role as 'Physicians of First Contact'. Faculty felt challenged to balance their role as academics in addition to their clinical responsibilities. However, introducing family medicine principles in the medical curriculum was sensed by the faculty to equip students to manage common clinical conditions effectively. In conclusion students' understanding of the unique status of family medicine to accommodate patients of all ages and problems within a single umbrella health-care system was well discerned by the authors in this study.