September 17, 2020: Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) launched an online course on Prescribing Skills for Indian Medical Graduates (pursuing or completed internship) on September 17, 2020 on the occasion of Patient Safety Day. The course is meant for improving prescription practices among Indian Medical Graduates and will be run by National Institute of Epidemiology (ICMR-NIE), Chennai.

Prof. Balram Bhargava, Secretary, DHR and Director General, ICMR while launching the course said “ICMR is committed to ensuring that the country’s medical graduates are at par with their international counterparts. The Council, through its institute ICMR-NIE has successfully completed a Basic Course in Biomedical Research. The course has now been made compulsory for postgraduates by theMedical Council of India. Building on the success, we will ensure that this digital course on Prescribing Skills for Indian Medical Graduates is effective”.

Dr.Rajni Kaul, Course Coordinator, ICMR, informed “This course was guided by Technical Advisory Group (TAG) set up by ICMR. ICMR has established National Virtual Centre of Clinical Pharmacology (NvCCP) in the year 2019 comprising of 15 Rational Use of Medicine Centres (RUMCs) located in top medical institutions across the country. The course is the outcome of the work done by the experts from these medical colleges.”

Dr.V.P. Kamboj, Chairman, Technical Advisory Groupsaid “The need and importance of the program were felt by Prof. Balram Bhargava. Subsequently feedback received from medical fraternity regarding prescription errors this activity was undertaken. The expert faculty members in clinical pharmacology and medicine from ICMR-NvCCP network have developed this online course on Prescribing Skills for Indian Medical Graduates covering topics relevant to India’s health problems.” Dr. NilimaKshirsagar, Lead Expertstated “The course is intended for Indian Medical Graduates during internship and deals with various aspects of Dos and Don’ts of prescribing, how to administer drugs and communicate instructions to patients, from general principle into specific prescribing for infections, eye, ear, skin, psychiatric diseases, women, children, elderly, emergency situations, chronic diseases of heart, high BP, diabetes and palliative care.”

The course constitutes 40 video lectures of 20 minutes to be taken online over 3 months at learners’ pace. The course involves a pre test to evaluate participants prior knowledge, MCQs to be answered after seeing the modules, evaluate a prescription for appropriateness, all this to assess if the course has improved the participants knowledge. A certificate of participation will be given on successful completion of the course. Interns are expected to register now, appear for pre test on October 4, 2020 or October 11, 2020. Then the IMG will have access to course from October 12, 2020 and it closes on December 30, 2020

The enrolment for the course will start from September 17, 2020. The course details will be available at https://main.icmr.nic.in/content/icmr-online-prescribing-skills-course-indian-medical-graduatesimg