Online Medical Education
Dr Neeraj Raj
Founder & MD
MEdRC EduTech, Hyderabad
[email protected]
Challenges in Medical Education:
Medical and Healthcare education is at the crossroads today. Healthcare delivery systems have changed
over the last two decades with rapid advances in medical sciences, propelled by infusion of technology,
throwing gaps in the existing medical education system – gaps between global and local needs; urban and
rural geographies; government and private sectors and between what and how teachers teach and how
students prefer to learn.
While there has been a shift on focus from acute care to chronic care that needs to be provided at
community level, it needs to be supported by much larger numbers of healthcare personnel continuously
trained at the community level itself. Shortage of healthcare manpower is emerging as the major bottleneck
in creating a scalable and sustainable healthcare delivery system. The current system of healthcare
education faces challenges related to scalability, that include an acute shortage of teachers, lack of uniform
quality, urban-rural divide and poor technology adoption. There is also need for continuous professional
development at all levels and need to build greater capacities and capabilities of practicing healthcare
professionals.
MEdRC – a Visionary initiative
The Medical Education Research Centre for Education Technologies (MEdRC) at Hyderabad has done
pioneering work in modularly digitizing the entire MBBS curriculum through indigenous efforts by more
than 750 medical professors and doctors who have teamed up with medical illustrators, animators and
technology experts over the past five years. This project has been cleared by high-powered committees set
up by Department of Science and Technology as an “Innovation of National Interest in Medical Education&
Skills Development” and R&D was part soft funded by Technology Development Board, DST, Govt. of
India.
This unique Digital Approach to Medical Education has been approved by the Academic Council of the
Medical Council of India and recommended by the Dental Council of India for widespread use across all
colleges. Committees set up by Dr. NTR University of Health Sciences, AP and Board of Studies of Kerala
University of Health & Allied Sciences has recommended use of this solution.Internationally, MEdRC’s
work has been appreciated at the Association of Medical Educators of Europe (AMEE) in Norway and
Amsterdam, medical schools in USA, Egypt, Malaysia and Philippines. It has also won the Manthan South
Asia Award and recognition as an innovator in UNESCO’s report on E-Learning in higher Education.
MEdRC Intro Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awDThAxwmZ4
MEdRC’s Digital Curriculum
MEdRC’s vision of a Virtual Health University seeks to provide uniform access to a digital repository of
structured curricular e-content consisting of over 500,000 reusable learning objects that allows any syllabus
to be mapped and made uniformly accessible on-demand across vast geographies. Navigating a
comprehensive digital curriculum, a student can go to any subject, any chapter and search for any topic and
learn from one of over 750 medical teachers and practicing doctors who have till date contributed over 4000
hours of peer reviewed e-lecture content with synchronized animations and graphics.On every lesson, the
student can take notes, share his notes, and create a bookmark to come back to later, ask questions through
email and even search through literature.