ENT-HNS education: what undergraduate students want?

Excerpt

ENT disorders form a large subset of patients in general practice. A large part of pediatric consultation also consists of ENT-related disorders. In India, undergraduate programme is the basic medical course that a student for five-and-a-half years of medical training, following which he can practice as a general practitioner. General practitioner has to manage general OPD and patients in the ward and he is the first contact to patients in casualty or emergency rooms. These doctors are expected to have adequate expertise in ENT-related diseases to assess the patient and provide appropriate treatment or first aid. This basic understanding is also essential to reduce unnecessary referrals from the community. Thus, basic teaching of ENT is must in the undergraduate curriculum, so that students can tackle general ENT disorders once they become general practitioners. …