Curricular Reforms in Undergraduate Medical Education: An Indispensable Need

DEAR EDITOR, The member countries of the World Health Organization recognize the health for all as a national goal and contemplate that medical education will produce competent physicians toward meeting this goal. However, the medical education and health‐care in most of the developing nations are facing the serious challenges both in content and in competencies. The burden of diseases across the developing countries is still large, which is generally attributed to inadequate infrastructure and lack of resources (viz. physician shortage, inequitable distribution of manpower and resources with regard to access to basic medical services and quality health‐care) and degradation in the quality of medical education. India has the highest number of medical colleges in the world. This unprecedented growth has occurred in the past two decades in response to increasing health needs of the country. The most significant challenge for regulatory bodies like the Medical Council of India has been to balance the need for more medical colleges with the maintenance and improvement of quality standards. Curricular reforms are advocated to systematically address these issues and develop Department of Community Medicine, Shri Sathya Sai Medical College & Research Institute, Kancheepuram, Tamil Nadu, India