title: Vertical integration of basic science in final year of medical education.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Development of health professionals with ability to integrate, synthesize, and apply knowledge gained through medical college is greatly hampered by the system of delivery that is compartmentalized and piecemeal. There is a need to integrate basic sciences with clinical teaching to enable application in clinical care.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To study the benefit and acceptance of vertical integration of basic science in final year MBBS undergraduate curriculum.
  
  
  METHODS
  After Institutional Ethics Clearance, neuroanatomy refresher classes with clinical application to neurological diseases were held as part of the final year posting in two medical units. Feedback was collected. Pre- and post-tests which tested application and synthesis were conducted. Summative assessment was compared with the control group of students who had standard teaching in other two medical units. In-depth interview was conducted on 2 willing participants and 2 teachers who did neurology bedside teaching.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Majority (>80%) found the classes useful and interesting. There was statistically significant improvement in the post-test scores. There was a statistically significant difference between the intervention and control groups' scores during summative assessment (76.2 vs. 61.8 P < 0.01). Students felt that it reinforced, motivated self-directed learning, enabled correlations, improved understanding, put things in perspective, gave confidence, aided application, and enabled them to follow discussions during clinical teaching.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Vertical integration of basic science in final year was beneficial and resulted in knowledge gain and improved summative scores. The classes were found to be useful, interesting and thought to help in clinical care and application by majority of students.
authors: Department of Medicine Unit 3, Christian Medical College, Vellore, Tamil Nadu, India.
authors: Sudha Jasmine
authors: SJ
authors: Rajan
authors: Department of Anatomy, Christian Medical College, Vellore, Tamil Nadu, India.
authors: Tripti Meriel
authors: TM
authors: Jacob
authors: Department of Medicine Unit 3, Christian Medical College, Vellore, Tamil Nadu, India.
authors: Sowmya
authors: S
authors: Sathyendra
keywords: Clinical teaching; undergraduate medical curriculum; vertical integration