March 16, 2011
School of Medicine, Kochi
Nine doctors at the Amrita School of Medicine recently completed a three-month course in Evidence-Based Medicine from Weill Cornell University, New York, one of America’s best medical colleges.
The course was conducted through a telemedicine link between Weill Cornell University and Amrita’s Health Sciences Campus, Kochi.
The nine doctors including Drs. Kumar Menon, Sreehari K. Pillai, Jacob Ninan, Zachariah Paul, Karthik Ganesh, Sandeep Sreedhar, Sujith Sasidharan Nair, Priya Nair and V. Chaitanya said that the course improved their ability to analyze clinical scenarios from an individual patient or population perspective.
“We studied how to implement useful findings from medical literature and research into clinical practice,” they stated.
Evidence Based Medicine is the process of systematically asking, acquiring, appraising and applying research findings as the basis for clinical decisions. The three-month classes included didactic lectures, critical analysis of scientific journals and clinical journal presentations.
“Throughout the course, we were guided by eminent faculty members from Weill Cornell Medical College,” stated Dr. Kumar Menon.
These faculty members included Dr. Madelon Finkel, Epidemiologist and Professor of Clinical Public Health at the Department of Public Health and Helen-Ann Brown Epstein, Head of Education and Outreach.
Dr. Madelon Finkel visited Amrita’s Health Sciences campus in March 2010.
Elaborating on the course, Dr. Menon said, “Although we had lectures, emphasis was given to problem solving. Clinical case scenarios were presented at each session for the learner to assess, appraise and answer.”
“The faculties presented cases related to a treatment issue or a diagnosis, prognosis or etiology scenario. We were instructed to find out the “best evidence” to address the clinical issues outlined in the case.”
“This three-month course helped us learn how to integrate medical evidence with clinical practice.”
The course was conducted as a part of the collaboration in medical education and research between Amrita University and Weill Cornell University, New York.
In future years, this collaboration between Amrita and Cornell will benefit many more scholars from both universities.