Science is constantly evolving, and we are getting to witness a shift in global health and the environment. With the constant evolution of health needs and practices, our country, India needs to own a more relevant medical stand for the same. This can be done by focusing on Community Medicine, which aims to protect and promote the health and well-being of communities and populations through Primary Health Care approach.

What is Community Medicine?

Community Medicine, also known as Preventive and Social Medicine (PSM) is a vast discipline. The vision of this discipline is promoting health, preventing diseases, and prolonging life. Community Medicine is an amalgamation of public health practice and primary level care of clinical medicine. This branch of medicine focuses on determinants of local health issues, community health, and community-oriented health care and providing optimal healthcare solutions to at-risk communities for achieving an improved quality of health and life.

Community Medicine/PSM covers public health nutrition, and health-care delivery systems including primary health care, along with epidemiology, social science, behavioral science, environmental science, biostatistics and management sciences as other critical allied sciences. The knowledge of this branch of medicine can be enhanced with other available resources such as government publications and recently updated guidelines.

Community Medicine Syllabus as per CBME Curriculum

• Concept of Health and Disease
• Relationship of social and behavioural to health and disease
• Environmental Health Problems
• Principles of health promotion and education
• Nutrition
• Basic statistics and its applications
• Epidemiology
• Epidemiology of communicable and non-communicable diseases
• Demography and vital statistics
• Reproductive maternal and child health
• Occupational Health
• Geriatric services
• Disaster Management
• Hospital waste management
• Mental Health
• Health planning and management
• Health care of the community
• International Health
• Essential Medicine
• Recent advances in Community Medicine

The former medical education system was built on a subject-centric and time-based curriculum. The majority of evaluations were summative, with minimal room for input. The evaluation techniques placed a greater emphasis on knowledge than on aptitude and skills. There was no emphasis on patient communication, doctor-patient relationships, ethics, and professionalism. This is where the new CBME Curriculum steps in to fill the void. It’s a strategy for ensuring that graduates gain the skills they’ll need to meet the patients’ needs in a wholistic manner. It promotes accountability, flexibility, and learner-centeredness rather than time-based training.

How to Study Community Medicine online during MBBS?

Studying Community Medicine requires patience and dedication. It is critical for all medical students to understand the subject inside out. So, first and foremost, the most important aspect of studying the subject is to try to connect all the ideas and concepts to real-world applications. As the subject is broad, you’ll need to resort to resources that provide you the right guidance with trusted course content. Try to cover each topic in detail so that you can visualise and recall all the elements of PSM during last-minute exam revision.

If you are planning to study Community Medicine (PSM) online, you can subscribe to DigiNerve’s Community Medicine for UnderGrads Course.

DigiNerve is a platform that is well-developed to equip medicos with the apt knowledge of all the disciplines. The Community Medicine course has been recently added to its list of excellent UnderGrad Courses. This course is a unique product that not only builds the basics but also keeps students updated about the recent developments in the field of community medicine. We are excited to announce that the students will be guided by one of India’s top faculty – Dr. Bratati Banerjee. She is not only one stellar author of many well-known books like “DK Taneja’s Health Policies & Programmes in India” and “Mahajan’s Methods in Biostatistics for Medical Students & Research Workers”, but also a highly qualified academician in the discipline of Community Medicine/PSM. All the content that is present in her video lectures has been professionally researched and updated, which is a bonus on top of your regular classes.

Community Medicine for UnderGrads has been developed as per the CBME (Competency-Based Medical Education) curriculum and designed with a coherent approach to solidify the concepts about Community Medicine. The course content has been kept as rich and instructive as possible with 100 lecture notes, 2000+ MCQs, relevant images, flowcharts, tables, and much more for conceptual clarity and proper revision.

Community Medicine for UnderGrads course is bifurcated into the following 5 sections:

1) Health and its determinants
2) Epidemiology
3) Care of vulnerable population
4) Management in health
5) Practicals

For the comfort of the students, these sections are further subdivided and spread over 40 different topics, which are followed by 105 sub-topics, so that the students can easily understand and learn all the basics of Community Medicine/PSM. Moreover, the practical section covers:

• Family health that includes how to study a family and the index case of the family.
• Spots and Exercises that include spotters from MCH, Nutrition, and Equipment, and exercises on epidemiology and statistics. Primarily, the faculty has discussed the formulae in the exercises section along with the calculation, and relevant topics with numerous examples.

At the end of each session, questions with answer keys are provided for self-assessment. The animations in the videos will acquaint the students with commonly asked questions in viva voce and university examinations regarding social medicine and community health; thus, enabling them in studying and preparing the subject simultaneously. Not only university exams, but the course also helps students to Prepare for NEET PG Exam.

Teaching community medicine to undergraduate students has become an important part of the medical curriculum to ensure that trained individuals maintain and improve the high standards of health in a developing nation like India in general.

Other FAQs Related to Community Medicine Subject

1. What are the important topics in Community Medicine? (Cover Secondary Keywords)

Community Medicine covers Social Medicine and Community Health, Community Family Medicine, and Preventive and Social Medicine (PSM). Some of the most important topics are Nutrition, Epidemiology, Safe Water, Biomedical Waste Management, Tuberculosis, RMNCH+A Programme, Public Health Emergency, Family Health Care, Nutrition & Nutritional Disorders, and recent topics like COVID-19.

2. Is it necessary to prepare Community Medicine from 2nd Year?

Yes, it is important to study PSM or Community Medicine from 2nd year. One can start with infectious diseases and combine the knowledge with microbiology. It is better to start studying as early as possible because PSM has a lot of weightage in the PG Exam and can also help in supplementing the understanding of various concepts for clinical subjects like medicine, obstetrics and gynecology and pediatrics.

3. How should a 3rd Year student approach PSM or Community Medicine?

You can start studying from “Communicable and Non-communicable disease” which are easy to understand. Then, take up biostatistics, screening and epidemiology, giving special attention to Health Programmes and Polices. Referring to previous year question papers will also help a lot.

4. Which books can one refer to study Community Medicine?

Park’s Textbook of Preventive & Social Medicine is quite popular for Community Medicine, however, students also refer to books such as Suryakantha’s “Community Medicine with Recent Advances” and Dr. Bratati Banerjee’s “DK Taneja’s Health Policies & Programmes in India”.