Jayant Vagha

Need assessment of enhancing the weightage of applied biochemistry in the undergraduate curriculum at MGIMS, sevagram

In order to review the need assessment of enhancing the weightage of Applied Biochemistry in the undergraduate curriculum at Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (MGIMS), Sevagram, a validated questionnaire was sent to 453 participants which include 387 undergraduate students, 11 interns, 23 postgraduate students, and 32 faculty members. A web‐based data collection and analysis tool was designed for online questionnaire distribution, data collection, and analysis. Response rate was 100%. Most of the respondents agreed that the subject Biochemistry has relevance in clinical practice (81.24%) and applied based learning of Biochemistry by medical undergraduates would help in overall improvement in the health standards/patients care (83.44%). According to 65.12% respondents, most of the medical undergraduates read Biochemistry just for examination purpose only. Nearly half of the respondents agreed that minute details of biochemical reactions were not much useful in clinical practice (53.86%) and the vast majority of diagrammatic cycles memorized by the medical undergraduates had no relevance in clinical practice (51.21%), the decreased interest in learning the Applied Biochemistry was due to more amount of clinically irrelevant information taught to medical undergraduates (73.51%), there was a need to rethink for removing the diagrammatic biochemical cycles from curriculum for medical undergraduates (48.12%), the less learning of Applied Biochemistry or competencies would affect the clinical skills and knowledge of medical undergraduates (70.42%). The result of this study suggests that there is need for restructuring the Biochemistry curriculum with more clinical relevance.

Diagnosis of Sanfilippo Disease Correlating Clinical, Radiological and Biochemical Findings–A Case Report

Mucopolysaccharidoses (MPS) are a group of genetic diseases and its diagnosis is a challenging task due to multiple differential diagnosis. We had combined clinical findings, radiological and ophthalmological features. Biochemical test for urine glycosaminoglycans (GAG) was done for confirmation of diagnosis in the patient. The case of Sanfilippo disease was characterized by slowly progressive, severe CNS involvement with mild somatic disease. Radiological features were suggestive of Sanfilippo disease and urine GAG test for MPS was positive in the case. With the clinical features we had multiple differential diagnoses. The radiological investigations minimized the list and the biochemical test confirmed GAG in urine. In this case the combination of clinical, radiological and biochemical findings confirmed the diagnosis of Sanfilippo disease.

Knowledge and attitudes of health profession's students about inter-relationship of communication gap with generation gap

Aim: To find out the knowledge and attitude of health professions students about communication gap and generation gap and their co-relation. Materials and Methods: A debate was organized for 200 health professions students between the age group of 18–24 years to know their knowledge, attitude, views, and ideas about “Generation gap”, “communication gap,” and co-relation of the two. Students not only actively participated in the debate and discussed various points related to this topic but also shared their ideas on “how to solve this communication gap due to the generation gap.” Result: Prevalidated questions were asked to 200 health professions students. Various factors responsible for communication gap and generation gap were discussed. Knowledge and attitude of health professions students gave important clues for developing effective communication and also to improve the generation gap. Conclusion: One of the important barriers in achieving effective communication is a generation gap. As per the opinion of health professions students, to solve this problem, one has to be a good listener, share ideas and problems, seek advice from parents, treat elders with respect, and give equal importance to career and family. Thus knowledge and attitude of health professions students can be helpful in achieving good communication skills in the context of medical and other healthcare practice for professional-patient interaction and within the healthcare team.