KARACHI, Oct 9: The national consultation committee on community-oriented medical education has completed the modified curriculum, fashioned on problem-based learning methodology, for third and final year students of medical colleges in the public sector.

The curriculum for the first and the second years under community-oriented medical education method was completed and presented to the President of Pakistan in Oct 1999 and its field tests were carried out in selected medical colleges.

Prof D.S. Akram, national coordinator for COME programme told APP on Wednesday that the methodology, also approved by the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council, was aimed to produce physicians with an appropriate competence, required for work environments of the country now and for the future.

“Such physicians will need to embody all the five vital characteristics: as care-givers, decision-makers, skillful communicators, community leaders and efficient managers,” she said.

Reminding that the present system of medical education was outdated and had not been evolved with changing times and circumstances, she said it was geared more towards curative care and doctors produced seemed to be concerned only with drugs and diseases.

She also mentioned that the World Health Organization had proposed the COME strategy which was approved by Pakistan, exposing local medical students to the national health problems, with an emphasis on acquiring skills and relevant theory in an integrated manner.

In the given backdrop and also due to the fact that the government had signed the Edinburgh Declaration in 1988, committing itself to reform medical education and bring it in line with the needs of the country, the urgency to start with the programme and gradually expand it to all medical schools had become all the more evident.

Prof Akram mentioned that presently the COME teaching methodology had been introduced at four selected medical colleges in the country, including the Dow Medical College, Karachi, Bolan Medical College, Quetta, King Edward Medical College, Lahore, and Ayub Medical College, Abbotabad.

The COME strategy has been internationally recognised and countries across the globe have developed their curricula based on their respective needs with the objective of training medical graduates.

The approach has also been used in the present popular teaching, called the problem-based learning (PBL) methodology, which exposes students to real life problems, making learning a life-long phenomenon.

The COME-PBL curriculum is expected to be gradually incorporated into medical education system of the country in the next few years. At present difficulties being faced in implementation of the same during pilot project phase is attempted to be adequately and efficiently addressed.