Science is constantly evolving, and we are getting to witness a shift in global health and the environment. With the constant evolution of health needs and practices, our country, India needs to own a more relevant medical stand for the same. This can be done by focusing on Community Medicine, which aims to protect and promote the health and well-being of communities and populations through Primary Health Care approach.

What is Community Medicine?

Community Medicine, also known as Preventive and Social Medicine (PSM) is a vast discipline. The vision of this discipline is promoting health, preventing diseases, and prolonging life. Community Medicine is an amalgamation of public health practice and primary level care of clinical medicine. This branch of medicine focuses on determinants of local health issues, community health, and community-oriented health care and providing optimal healthcare solutions to at-risk communities for achieving an improved quality of health and life.

Community Medicine/PSM covers public health nutrition, and health-care delivery systems including primary health care, along with epidemiology, social science, behavioral science, environmental science, biostatistics and management sciences as other critical allied sciences. The knowledge of this branch of medicine can be enhanced with other available resources such as government publications and recently updated guidelines.

Community Medicine Syllabus as per CBME Curriculum

• Concept of Health and Disease
• Relationship of social and behavioural to health and disease
• Environmental Health Problems
• Principles of health promotion and education
• Nutrition
• Basic statistics and its applications
• Epidemiology
• Epidemiology of communicable and non-communicable diseases
• Demography and vital statistics
• Reproductive maternal and child health
• Occupational Health
• Geriatric services
• Disaster Management
• Hospital waste management
• Mental Health
• Health planning and management
• Health care of the community
• International Health
• Essential Medicine
• Recent advances in Community Medicine

The former medical education system was built on a subject-centric and time-based curriculum. The majority of evaluations were summative, with minimal room for input. The evaluation techniques placed a greater emphasis on knowledge than on aptitude and skills. There was no emphasis on patient communication, doctor-patient relationships, ethics, and professionalism. This is where the new CBME Curriculum steps in to fill the void. It’s a strategy for ensuring that graduates gain the skills they’ll need to meet the patients’ needs in a holistic manner. It promotes accountability, flexibility, and learner-centeredness rather than time-based training.

How to Study Community Medicine online during MBBS?

Studying Community Medicine requires patience and dedication. It is critical for all medical students to understand the subject inside out. So, first and foremost, the most important aspect of studying the subject is to try to connect all the ideas and concepts to real-world applications. As the subject is broad, you’ll need to resort to resources that provide you the right guidance with trusted course content. Try to cover each topic in detail so that you can visualise and recall all the elements of PSM during last-minute exam revision.