Problems and Challenges in Medical Education in India.
As India marches towards an exciting new future of growth and progress, medical education will play pivotal role in crafting a sustained development agenda. The idea of creating a healthy society is no longer a debatable luxury; its significance has been grasped by policy shapers worldwide. In a developing nation like India, medical services play a very important role in the well-being of their citizens and indirectly play a very important part in the economic and overall development of the nation. The medical education system is suffering from misdistribution, traditional curriculum, poor assessment, neglected research and lack of faculty development programmes. „Vision 2015‟ has potential for creating substantial change in Indian medical education. A stronger strategic approach will ensure a solid foundation for the improvement in the health status of India. Conventional-theoretical and experimental teaching blended with a system of teaching which is innovative, aiming to develop under-graduates and post-graduates as community-teachers, true-academician/researcher should be emphasized. This paper focuses on the various challenges of medical education in India.
Structuring a research infrastructure: A study of the rise and fall of a large-scale distributed biobank facility
This study analyses the perceived key interests, importance, influences and participation of different actors in harmonizing the processes and mechanisms of a distributed research infrastructure. It investigates the EU-funded initiative, BioBanking and Molecular Resource Infrastructure in Sweden (BBMRI.se), which seeks to harmonize the biobanking standards. The study interviews multiple actors involved throughout the development process. Their responses are analysed via a framework based on the IIED Stakeholder Power Analysis Tool. The BBMRI.se formation was facilitated by two parallel processes, with domestic and European/foreign origin, with leading scientists becoming ‘National Champions’. The respondents joined the organization under the premise that it would be a collaborative endeavour, but they were disappointed to learn the deliberative elements were more prevalent. In conclusion, the resulting autonomous structure caused disarray, while also fuelling interpersonal differences, ultimately leading to the closure of the infrastructure. Hence, it is necessary to clearly identify potential collaborative and deliberative elements already at the outset while also securing wider forms of communication between the participating actors, when establishing distributed research infrastructures. Moreover, while prior literature suggests that research infrastructures counteracts fragmentation, these results illustrate that this is not the case for this distributed research infrastructure.
Extent of East-African Nurse Leaders' Participation in Health Policy Development
This paper reports part of a bigger study whose aim was to develop an empowerment model that could be used to enhance nurse leaders' participation in health policy development. A Delphi survey was applied which included the following criteria: expert panelists, iterative rounds, statistical analysis, and consensus building. The expert panelists were purposively selected and included national nurse leaders in leadership positions at the nursing professional associations, nursing regulatory bodies, ministries of health, and universities in East Africa. The study was conducted in three iterative rounds. The results reported here were gathered as part of the first round of the study and that examined the extent of nurse leaders' participation in health policy development. Seventy-eight (78) expert panelists were invited to participate in the study, and the response rate was 47%. Data collection was done with the use of a self-report questionnaire. Data analysis was done by use of SPSS and descriptive statistics were examined. The findings indicated that nurse leaders participate in health policy development though participation is limited and not consistent across all the stages of health policy development. The recommendations from the findings are that health policy development process needs to be pluralistic and inclusive of all nurse leaders practicing in positions related to policy development and the process must be open to their ideas and suggestions.