Bengaluru Medical students gear up to face questions on Covid-19 in this year’s exam

Students in some of the city medical institutions will be getting to answer questions on Covid-19 in their exams this year.

Though Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS), the country’s largest medical university, usually refreshes its MBBS syllabus once in four years, it is planning to put forth questions in its postgraduate microbiology paper concerning, at least, the diagnostic aspect of the pathogen.

"Community medicine postgraduate students can be asked about the epidemiological aspects of the Covid-19 disease in their exams. In the past, HIN1, Nipah and Zika made it to exam papers immediately," said Dr S Sacchidanand, vice-chancellor, RGUHS.

Dr TS Ranganath, head, Department of Community Medicine, Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute (BMCRI), said the institute will question its PG students on analysing reproduction number (R0), interpreting various Covid models and the measures they will take at the community level as medical officers if the R0 is increasing.

“How to predict outbreaks, what are the different models to forecast when the current wave will end — these are the different aspects they should be well aware of by reading external journals and peer-reviewed articles," Ranganath said.

A cursory search on e-commerce sites may show several books on Covid-19, but textbooks are few and far between.

'Covid-19 Comprehensive Review', authored by multispecialty experts and faculty members of prestigious Indian medical institutes, is one of the recent textbooks to come out.

First textbook out

Last month, a book titled ‘Comprehensive textbook of Covid-19', authored by 80 doctors of the Apollo group of hospitals across specialties hit the stand. This was the first book on the subject nearly a year and five months after the disease hit India.

Currently available on Amazon, the textbook has been written by medics who were directly or indirectly involved with the care of thousands of Covid-19 patients in ICUs, floors, HDUs and OPDs.

"The book offers 56 chapters, which covers history, epidemiology, pathogenesis and clinical features,” lead author and pulmonologist Dr M S Kanwar, who is with Apollo Hospitals, told DH.

Since Covid affects all organs in the body, all specialties are involved in the treatment. The book, therefore, deals with the impact of Covid on diverse topics like pregnancy and children, and the production of aerosols in dental procedures.

“It also explores the role of Artificial Intelligence in treating Covid-19,” Dr Kanwar said, explaining how the book touches upon several other aspects like the challenges in nursing, neurological and psychiatric manifestations of Covid-19, challenges related to administration and rehabiltation.

"We are talking to the National Board of Examinations that conducts the largest portfolio of examinations in the field of medicine in India to talk to medical colleges and put it in their libraries," he added.