ABSTRACT
The Indian Medical Council introduced the Competency based medical education (CBME) in the academic year 2019-20. One of the many new changes in the undergraduate medical curriculum, was the Foundation course (FC) of one month duration, introduced at the beginning of the medical course. The purpose of FC was to prepare the entrant medical students to medical education and profession. Program evaluation is essential to analyse the utility and also for continuous remodelling of of any educational program, so that the primary objectives are achieved. The study hypothesis was that the students would find the foundation course vital and beneficial. This was a mixed method study including quantitative and qualitative methods. Following the conduct of FC, we collected feedback from diverse group of first professional medical students (n= 719) of academic year 2019-20 by administering pre-validated standardized questionnaires using google forms. Majority of students agreed or strongly agreed that the FC experience was educative, interesting, and an enabling experience. Qualitative responses revealed, that the students were pleased to be introduced to the most salient aspects of medical education and profession. The most significant suggestions for improvement were reduction of duration of FC, conducting FC after completing the entire admission process, reduce redundancy in topics and to deliver it more interactively. Our study is unique to have evaluated perception on FC from a large number of students across various government, private and deemed medical institutions in South India. Insights from this study will help to guide effective implementation of FC.