A study on the awareness and practice of medical education technologies among medical college teachers

Background: Globally there is a move to reorient the medical education to suit the needs of the developing nations. Medical Council of India has made it is mandatory that all faculty need to attend Basic course in Medical Education Technologies (MET) to improve teaching effectiveness. In spite of their efforts in this regard many of the faculty is still unaware of this initiative and those who have already attended the course are not effectively practicing it. This study aimed at assessing level of awareness and practice of medical education technologies among the teaching faculty.Methods: Data was collected from the faculty by personal interviews using a validated semi-structured questionnaire and analysed using SPSS.Results: 219 faculty members participated in the study working in 26 departments. Mean age of faculty was 40.98 (SD: 12.36). 57.1% of them were males and 42.9% were females. The level of awareness among study participants about learning process related medical education technologies ranged from 57% (for psychomotor domain) to 74% (for setting up of educational objectives). The awareness and practice of ‘teaching process’ and assessment process related medical education technologies remained low. No statistically significant association was obtained between awareness and practice of SLO, Microteaching, and MiniCEX.Conclusions: Majority of teachers remain untrained in the medical education technologies at the time of the study. Of the non-clinical compared to the clinical stream of teachers, greater proportion of teachers in non-clinical section have been trained. The awareness and practice of ‘medical education technologies’ remain low among the study participants.

A study on mosquito density in rural Kerala before and after floods

Background: Mosquito borne diseases are a major public health problem in Kerala. Mosquito density assessed by larval surveys is easier and quicker to perform. The larval indices are an important practical predictor of outbreaks of mosquito borne disease and are valuable in taking preventive measures. This study is done to calculate standardized larval indices namely house index, container index and Breteau index and to identify the major breeding sources of mosquitoes in the residential environment in a rural of Thrissur, Kerala.Methods: A cross-sectional study selecting 80 houses from 1 wards of Konnikara village under Thrikkur Panchayath under the field practice area of rural training centre, Amala Institute of Medical Sciences Thrissur. Every water holding container indoors and outdoors was counted and searched for larval presence and noted on a pretested format.Results: In this study, 80 houses were surveyed in 2 days initially in June and in September. All the entomological indices were found to be above the critical level in the initial survey in June. House index=36% container index=44%; Breteau index=143% showing high chances for outbreaks of mosquito borne diseases. In September though the indices were very low house index 1.25% container index 2.77% and Breteau index.Conclusions: The area is prone for mosquito borne disease outbreaks like dengue fever and after interventions the vector indices and potential risks came down