Medical college with a heart

The Gokula Education Foundation (GEF) was founded in 1962 to provide quality education to students in various fields. Today, it has 16 institutions under it including the M S Ramaiah Medical College (MSRMC) in Bangalore which was started in 1979.

Housed in 65 acres of lush land, it became the first medical college in the world to receive the ISO 9002 certification in 1999. It also has the ISO 9001:2000 certification for training undergraduates as well as post graduate students while it is in the process of getting NAAC accreditation. Dr S Kumar, Prof of Pathology, Principal of MSRMC, says it is amongst the top eight medical institutions in the country in terms of facility and infrastructure and the only college offering a PhD programme in physiotheraphy.

With an annual intake of 150 students, MSRMC offers under graduate MBBS, and post graduate programmes in all pre and para clinical disciplines. It also trains post graduates in urology, plastic surgery and neurology. Its programmes have been recognised by the Medical Council of India since 1986. The college is also recognised by the WHO, General Medical Council UK (GMC), Irish Medical Council, Malaysian Medical Council, Sri Lankan Medical Council and all the councils in the Middle East.

It is attached to a full-fledged teaching hospital with 1330 beds and equipped with state-of-the-art ICU and dialysis facilities. Add to this, its quality faculty and teaching infrastructure and well-equipped labs and you have a college that stands out in the crowd. The value addition its degrees have got in terms of the recognition they have received by external agencies is tremendous, says Dr Kumar.

The largest number of Indian students immigrating to the US from a single institution in the world is from MSRMC, adds he.

Many factors contribute towards making MSRMC unique, says Dr Kumar. One of them is that it takes teaching very seriously and does not resort to mere verbal diarrhoea. Faculty undergo training sessions before they begin teaching. Since teachers grow by feedback, they are assessed for the way they teach by the HoD, and particularly by the students. If a teacher does not score at least 3.6 on a scale of 5, he or she has to undergo training once again. The college also has special programmes for slow learners. Rigorous training has allowed the college to register a pass percentage of 85 for the past five years, he says.

Student welfare measures

MSRMC also boasts of several student welfare measures. Around eight years ago it introduced the student tracking system whereby students’ attendance and performance data are uploaded online every Saturday. Parents and guardians can access this information by logging in with the unique code they are given at the beginning of the year. However, there is a flip side to the story. There have been times when students, after they turn 18, insist they have the right to censor what their parents see. In order to thwart this tendency, at the beginning of the course the college makes students sign an undertaking that their parents or guardians will have access to their performance data throughout their course. 

Then there is the tutor-mentor programme where a small group of students is assigned to a mentor group which takes care of the learning needs of the students.
However, the student insurance scheme that MSRMC pioneered is definitely the most unique among all student-centric measures that the college has. Through this, every student who enters the college is insured to complete the course even if there is the accidental death of the parent or guardian who is paying for the students’ education. This has proved very beneficial to a couple of economically weak students who lost a fee-paying parent during the course of their study, says Dr Kumar.

Food and hostel

Around 1300 medical and dental students stay on campus at the MSRMC hostels. There are four categories of rooms ranging from single rooms with attached bath to shared rooms. The rent ranges from Rs 12,000 to Rs 32,000 a year depending on the room and its facilities. Moreover, the college has a centralised kitchen and a food court with five vendors specialising in various kinds of cuisine to take care of the numerous gastronomical preferences of students.

It also has a well-equipped library with 60 internet terminals, more than 15,000 books and more than 700 journals. At any given time the library can accommodate around 600-700 students.