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Regulations on Graduate Medical Education (GME,2012) envisions an undergraduate medical
education program aimed at creating an ‘Indian Medical Graduate’ (IMG) possessing adequate
knowledge, skills, attitude, values and responsiveness in order to function effectively.
National committees have acknowledged the need to develop a ‘formal curriculum’ to inculcate
professionalism and facilitate the process of ‘Professional Development (PD)’ among
Undergraduate Medical Students (UMS). Need assessment is one of the initial steps in Curriculum
Development and we decided to evaluate the CRRI feedback on the need, structure and design of
the PD curriculum. Ethical clearance was obtained from IRB and after getting the informed consent
a structured and validated questionnaire consisting of 10 open ended and 5 close ended questions
was administered to 53 CRRIs (men = 21, women = 32).The data was analyzed using SPSS software
version 10. 90% felt that it was important to run such a program and 87% said that they would
recommend this program for their juniors. 76% felt that the program was relevant and meaningful,
63% wanted a session on ‘breaking the bad news’, 53% emphasised that only Clinicians to be the
resource faculty and 40% opted for interactive lectures. PD including ethics and medical humanities
is a proposed program by the Medical Council of India. Undertaking the need assessment in every
institution before planning the curriculum is crucial to address the specific needs, in addition to the
proposed topics. Involving a team of faculty, students and curriculum experts in this process would
prove more beneficial.
Keywords: Medical Education, professionalism, Medical Ethics, Professional Development, CRRI