’Outreach Programs' : Mobile Workshops For Medicos
 

In the first year itself the Academy developed a novel highly cost effective concept of Mobile Workshops as a means for quick dissemination of knowledge to medical students. The concept has essentially two components (a) teachers’ workshops to update their knowledge base and (b) students’ (undergraduates) workshops on the same topic conducted with the help of these teachers along with a few experts from the Academy . The latter are always held only in colleges taking new knowledge to students’ doorstep. Mobile workshops is an Outreach Program especially for our resource strapped medical colleges.

The first series of workshops were held on Human Genetics. Results of the MCQ tests conducted to measure the impact of this modality are shown in  The average pre- and post- workshop scores were 57.2% and 72.5% respectively clearly indicating the beneficial impact of this novel educational strategy. Further analysis showed that 25 students (30.8 %) could not score even 50% marks in the Pre workshop MCQ; only 2 students scored more than 80% marks. The picture was totally different in the post workshop MCQ test. The number students securing less than 50% was reduce to 1 (2.5%) while 40% scored more than 80% marks; some scoring even above 90%.

The workshop received an average rating of 8 out of 10 in the feedback from the participants. The same pattern was observed in all other workshops. The program is not only continued, but extended to include other disciplines such as oncology, immunology, regenerative medicine and stem cell biology. Some 30 workshops have been held so far in this on going program in medical colleges in different parts of India.

The concept has been internationalized. In future at least one workshop will be held every year jointly by the Moving Academy of Medicine and Biomedicine and Association of Indian Pathologists in North America. The workshops will be held in conjunction with local medical colleges. The first workshop was held on Cellular and Molecular Medicine in Krishna Institute of Medical Sciences, Karad on 1st February 2009. The second will be held on Genomic Medicine on 4th February 2010 in MGM Medical College Indore .

Mobile workshop in life sciences for science colleges

The concept of the mobile workshops has also been extended to science colleges especially in Biotechnology. The first two workshops, both on Biology of Nucleic Acid including Cloning were held in Art, Commerce and Science College Ahemadnagar in collaboration the Department of Biotechnology of the college. Each workshop was attended by 35 selected students. The main emphasis was on live demonstrations. Topic covered were Extraction of Nucleic acid, PCR, R. E. Degestion, PAGE, and cloning. The contents were well illustrated with suitable posters.