Fellowship in Family Medicine

General practitioners of today are not in the mold of a classic family physician. Though they see a large variety of problems that affect the population like rashes, eye conditions, foot disorders, lumps and so on, they are not generally equipped to manage them. Equipping them with necessary skills through a structured course that encompasses knowledge enhancement as well as hands-on training on management of day-to-day problems and emergencies is essential to bring out a family physician from general practitioner.

This course is recommended for doctors who have a number of years experience as practitioners and would like to imbibe the necessary skills through fast track. This would equip them with skills and knowledge as well as hands-on training on management of day-to-day problems and emergencies, which is essential to bring out a family physician from general practitioner.

Difference between the DFM and FFM course:

1. DFM is for 2-years, whereas FFM is a one-year course.
2. DFM can lead to MRCGP; a student who completes DFM shall be better placed to write the exam for MRCGP.
3. FFM is for those busy practitioners who do not find time to take off from their practice to attend CMEs, Conferences, seminars and so on. Hence it is of shorter duration, designed to suit the busy schedules of these practitioners; it focuses more on experiential learning, in that it incorporates many interesting case studies, which help the doctor in not only developing his diagnostic skills but also helps in managing the patients at his own level rather than refer them to specialists.

Clinical rotations are the live contact sessions for the students. They have been positioned very strategically on week-ends and on a bi-monthly basis, so that there are as many as 6 such sessions in a 1-year Fellowship course. These contact sessions provide a student with ample hands-on experience as well as tutelage under senior specialist doctors in the concerned disciplines.

The course content is so structured that whatever the student learns in the first 2 months shall lead him to the first clinical rotation, where the student will get hands-on experience with the bed-side events.

The students will practically learn the clinical applications applicable to primary care and management of the commonly prevailing illnesses outside the hospital environment. The students shall be able to apply these principles in their day-to-day clinical practice.

The 1 year Fellowship and the 2-year Diploma course in Family Medicine enhance your knowledge and build your skills to the next level of proficiency, so that you would be better placed to offer your services.

Participation in clinical rotations would give you the much-needed bed-side experiences that enhance your patient management skills and would be a compulsory part of the formative assessments. It would certainly reflect on your grades and you will be losing out on the overall weightage.

You would be allowed to attend the same clinical rotation along with students of the next batch, but at your own expense.

At any point of time, the course structure is so designed as to give you an opportunity to pose any queries to the Program Director of the Course. The Call Centre shall help to get your query answered within 24 hours.

There is a provision to communicate with other students through an open Discussion Forum.

The entire course content will be delivered on a 7” Tab and the Tab would be provided to all the students who enroll for the course, without any additional fee.

The Tab will have a detailed Navigation tutorial, which takes you through all the operations on the Tab, despite which if there are any problems with the Tab, you can always pose a query to the Call Centre, which will ensure that your problem is resolved within 24 hours.

The 1-year Fellowship and the 2-year Diploma course in Family Medicine follow a set pattern of formative and summative assessments/ examinations. Following are the types of assessments/examinations that each candidate is subjected to:
Self assessments: These are scheduled online at the end of every lecture and are not timed and graded. These assessments help the candidates in assessing themselves on how much they grasped the lecture, know where to refocus, study, understand and assimilate. They are strongly advised to be taken up but it is not a compulsion.
Weekend graded assessments (WGA): Each week of the course concludes with an online weekend assessment. Candidates will be questioned on all the topics covered in that week. There are a predetermined number of MCQs to be answered in a stipulated period of time. All the weekend assessments that precede a spell of clinical rotation have to be completed and submitted by the weekend preceding that of the clinical rotations, submission beyond which marks will not be awarded. These are graded and once submitted cannot be reattempted for a better score. The scores will carry considerable weightage towards formative assessments of theory.
Semester-end graded assessments (SGA): These are graded online assessments scheduled at the end of every semester. Candidates will be questioned on all the topics covered in that semester. There are a predetermined number of MCQs to be answered in a stipulated period of time. Once submitted, they cannot be reattempted for a better score. The score will carry weightage towards formative assessments of theory.
Weekend and Semester-end assessments are part of formative assessment of theory and constitute 60% of final score on theory, the balance 40% being covered by the final theory examination.

Course-end Theory exam (Final Graded Assessment – FGA): The final theory exam, which is the summative assessment that constitutes the balance 40% of the weightage for the theory exam. They consist of 50 MCQs and 10 MEQs and are to be completed in stipulated period of time. Once submitted, they cannot be reattempted for a better score. It carries 40% weightage towards final score on theory.