Dr. Vivek Jawali at CII’s India Higher Education Summit

Mysuru:  The medical education sector should look at ‘outsourced on-site private programmes’ to improve medical education and services, said   Dr. Vivek Jawali, one of the leading Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgeons in the country.

Delivering the keynote address on “Newer needs in health care education” here recently at the India Higher Education Summit organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Dr. Jawali said since there is severe shortage of quality teaching faculty in medical colleges, it is required to develop clinical problem solving video-games and low cost models for surgical skill training.

Stressing the need on train-the-trainer programme, Dr. Jawali said when there is a huge demand for super specialists, the Medical Council of India (MCI) should consider a direct 6-year super specialty track for the MBBS graduates.

Considering the different and complex dimensions of the current medical education, hospital support and services and the customer expectations, the government should also propose IMS (Indian Medical Service) akin to IAS, he suggested.

On healthcare services, Dr. Jawali, who is also the Chairman of Fortis Hospitals, said that “out-patient departments of the future will not be in four walls, and students will get trained in virtual OPDs”. Virtual training is becoming reality across all disciplines as technology is being used extensively in knowledge delivery. Further, he felt that the status of general practitioners should be redefined.

India still spends only around 4.2 per cent of its national GDP towards healthcare goods and services compared to 18 per cent by the US. About 30 per cent of all that still goes to primary care, Dr. Jawali added.

In his keynote address on “Transforming higher education – Need for changes in policy and education delivery”, Dr. R. Balasubramaniam, Founder and Chairman of GRAAM, said in order to avoid “hire and train” efforts, it is essential for students to know the ‘future of work’ when they are studying.  The future of work can be understood well if technology, data and policy are understood by the students.

Mahesh Jambardi, COO of Excelsoft, H.M. Prashanth, Strategic Head, Excelsoft, Srinivasan Sridhar, CMO, Apollo MedSkills and Dr. P. Nilani, Dy. Director, JSS Academy of Higher Education & Research, presented their views in the panel discussion on the theme ‘Changes in policy and education  delivery infrastructure’.

Prof. G. L. Shekar, former Principal, NIE, in his closing remarks, said that there should be sufficient infrastructure for disseminating the multimedia courseware modules over internet. Virtual reality is a hot topic in education and schools and colleges should emulate the innovative learning resources developed by big companies like Google and Samsung.