Implementation of family adoption program using five-pronged strategy of integrated holistic health team: A way forward

Abstract

About 65.5 % of the Indians live in rural areas while availability of healthcare is biased towards urban setups. Medicine in undergraduates is taught in ivory towers of medical colleges, a paradigm shift in teaching bedside medicine from these ivory towers to community level is required. Hence a new competency-based medical education for undergraduate course was adopted with family adoption program as a vital component, which provides an opportunity for undergraduates to get sensitised to problems and social dynamics at grass root level. We propose an integrated holistic health team model to implement family adoption program so as to address needs of community and build consensus amongst graduate students from various health disciplines to work in integrated team approach and result in enhanced learning. A five pronged strategy is implemented by forming an integrated team comprising of students from medical, aental, ayurveda, and physiotherapy & nursing streams. The institutions that have undergraduate program for any two to five of these disciplines can adopt proposed approach. Expected outcomes of utilising this model is to create holistic health team thereby inculcating in budding graduates team spirit, mutual cooperation & respect for other disciplines of health sciences and thereby holistic healthcare to community.