About the Course

“There are 57 different specialists to diagnose and treat 57 different varieties of diseases, but no physician to take care of the patient” – so very aptly said by one physician, when asked to comment on the decline in the number of family doctors. Changing trend towards specialization has fragmented the patient care today so much that it has weakened the patient-physician relationship and thereupon the public outcry over the fragmented medical care gave re-birth to the dying speciality of ‘Family Medicine’. Dr Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization endorses Primary care as our best hope for the future. Family doctors are our “Rising stars for the future”.

Propelled by such emphatic endorsement of the concepts of primary care by the World Health Organisation, Commonwealth Medical Evarsity Courses is launching its flagship course, the two-year Diploma in Family Medicine, with the combined experiences of Commonwealth Medical Evarsity running the course in ‘chalk and board’ distance education for nearly a decade or so and Medisys nearly 2 decades into the field of virtual education.

General practitioners of today are not in the mold of a typical family physician. Though they see a large variety of problems that affect the population, they are generally ill-equipped to manage them. Commonwealth Medical Evarsity shall impart general practitioners of today with necessary disease management skills through scientifically-designed, pedagogically-grounded courses, with experiential learning forming the fulcrum.

The Commonwealth Medical eVarsity courses are a rich amalgamation of the best models of education in the contemporary scene, comprising online study blended with webcasting and mannequin-based as well as bedside clinical trainings. They take off from the famed competency assessment tool of Case-based discussion, as promoted by reputed Universities from across the globe in carving out family physicians.

The course is affiliated to Martin Luther Christian University – MLCU, a premier university from Shillong, doing yeoman service in the field of education in India

Career Prospects

The primary objective of this course is to metamorphose general practitioners to family physicians by training them on the art of treating the human being and not just the patient. The long-forgotten art of ‘communicating’ with the patient is the main edifice on which this course is built. It starts with and immerses the doctor into listening more than talking, ‘touching’ more than examining and ‘feeling’ more than tackling! While doing so, it imparts career enhancing skills empowering him to function as a Consultant Family Physician, enabling him to render health services to the community and to take timely decisions for referral to provide secondary/ tertiary health services whenever needed.

Course Eligibility

MBBS/MBchB/MD doctors with medical registration in their respective country Medical council

Course Syllabus

Course Delivery Format

Taking leaf from Winston Churchill’s philosophy of “always ready to learn although … not always like being taught”, Commonwealth Medical Evarsity is transforming medical education by garnering learning empowered by the interactive platform of digital technology. Commonwealth Medical Evarsity model of blended education integrates best practices of ‘chalk and board’ with emerging technologies, purporting to make mockery of fragmented medical care, that is the bane of the rising costs of health care today!

The Commonwealth Medical Evarsity offers best of the models of blended education through online lectures, with the convenience of self-study at one’s own pace, time and place, complemented by online faculty interactions and clinical exposure through hospital rotations.

A rich learning environment is provided through the SmarTeach Learning Platform with access to:

• Online lectures delivered by experts in respective fields. The students can view the lecture any number of times using tools to conveniently play/pause, forward/rewind, skip/review, bookmark
• Included in these lectures are hundreds of text slides, illustrations and appropriate 2D and 3D animations, audios and videos to make concepts easy to understand
• Reading material including prescribed Text book and e-Books for each chapter; additional reading material would also be suggested through links.
• Facility for the student to bookmark specific segments of a running lecture and ability to add your own notes for later review.
• Weekly self-assessment through multiple choice questions from a question bank of over 1,00,000 questions across all subject areas
• Case based discussions [CbD], where you will be expected to select 2 specific cases during the period of compulsory clinical rotation under the guidance of in-house clinician and ensure completeness of the Logbook for the cases decided.
• Online contact sessions through Webchat and scheduled webinars
• Optional Tablet mode is available for convenience of self-study without need for Internet connectivity.

Assessment

Diploma in Family Medicine follows a set pattern of formative and summative assessments. Following are the types of assessments/examinations that each candidate is subjected to:

• Self Assessments, scheduled online at the end of every lecture and are neither timed nor graded.
• Weekend Graded Assessments [WGA] comprise a predetermined number of MCQs to be answered in a stipulated period of time. These are graded assessments and once submitted cannot be reattempted for a better score. The scores will carry considerable weightage towards formative assessments of theory.
• Semester[ Semester – 6 months duration]-end Assessments [SA] are also  MCQ Examination at the end of every semester

Course-end  exam: The final  exam, consists of 50 MCQs to be completed in stipulated period of time.

Course fee

The Course fee is US $ 1000

Join the Program

Suggested Reading

• Text Book of Family Medicine by Dr. Arulrhaj

Links to Share

• “The rising importance of family medicine” by Dr Margaret Chan (Director-General of the World Health Organization)