Papers and posters submitted by two house surgeons of Andhra Medical College – T. Shanmukha Babu and B. Padmanabha Varma – youngest among the more than 400 delegates that attended the third annual conference on medical education science in Tirupati recently, were received well and won special prizes of appreciation.
One poster on love affairs and academics caught the attention of all. Shanmukha Babu’s paper on the feasibility and acceptability of 360 degree (multisource) feedback in medical college was acknowledged for the novelty of the topic. Padmanabha Varma’s paper on the preferences of final-year medical students, regarding their theory classes, brought out an oft forgotten fact – that they are ‘adult learners’ with quite firm ‘likes’ and ‘dislikes’, which need to be addressed to make teaching more meaningful.
The posters too were widely appreciated for their originality and innovativeness. Varma’s poster experimented on the use of three-in-a row games (Tic-Tac-Toe and “Daadi” meaning attack) in medical education using medical terms instead of crosses and circles or pawns, respectively.
Several visitors said they would try them in quizzes and in their classes. Shanmukh’s poster on love affairs and their impact on academics aroused a lot of curiosity and attention, even as the study found that up to 45 per cent medicos are likely to fall in love but up to 80 per cent of them are likely to break within 6 months to a year!
Love affairs
Quite surprisingly some felt that love affairs could benefit students through combined study while the majority felt that they usually led to disastrous consequences. Boys were more likely to be affected than girls by breakdowns and are likely to get into depression or drinking, though, suicide was not to worry about. The C.S. Murty Memorial Medal was awarded to Dr. Pallavi from NRI Medical College, Guntur, for her paper on the utility of workshops in medical education while Lokesh, Surgery PG in SV Medical College, Tirupathi received the C. Janaki Memorial Medal for his paper on the difficulties faced by junior medicos in learning in the surgical operation theatres where they are often not given adequate attention.
Two more papers from Visakhapatnam – one on the low levels of interaction between PG students and faculty and their consequences, by Dr. K.V.V. Vijaya Kumar, and another on the awareness and inclination of graduate and postgraduate students towards research, by Dr. P.J. Srinivas – set off a lively discussion. AMC’s delegation to the conference was the largest after the host’s.
