Make learning an interactive habit.

This is a greeting I received last year for the Teacher's day from one of the medical students. I have visited this quotation often during the last year. It is an inspirational quotation.

I have been a teacher in five  medical colleges during the last 25 years now. I look back at many events which have shaped my life for which I am grateful to my colleagues and students. 

A teacher is a co-learner with students. The students facilitate the learning journey of a teacher.

A student once came to me while I was at the Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medial Sciences, Sevagram to tell me that many children in the village that  he came from, suffered from Measles and some had died. It was the year 1976. The Measles vaccine was expensive and was not part of the National Immunisation Programme. I talked this over with Dr. Ulhas Jajoo, a class mate during my under graduate days at Nagpur, who was also in the faculty at MGIMS at that time. Jajoo was contemplating to start a food grain based insurance programme for village folks to help them to get subsidised health care at the hospital. Each family would have to give their premium of health insurance at the harvesting time as grains, which would be stored to sell back to the villagers at the cost price, form which the insurance premium in cash would be deposited to the hospital.  Jajoo was more than glad to include Measles immunisation as part of the insurance package. That was the starting of a life saver for children from Measles in some villages around Sevagram.  

It was a student who challenged me; it was his observation and social passion which set in motion an intervention plan. 

This form of student- teacher interaction is most critical to make medical education a corporate learning experience. Teachers need to be contextual, relevant and effective. The students, who are primary learners can lead teachers to make learning a growing and enlarging experience for students.   

Students influence the teachers to be thoughtful and gentle; teachers mould the attitudes and values of students. Both are interactive experiences, which alone can make medical education process life-centred and not just disease centred.  

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)