ROME: a tool to train under graduate medical students as community health care providers
Background: Re-Orientation of Medical Education (ROME) program is relatively a new teaching and learning method for undergraduate medical students which enables them to achieve the knowledge and skills to provide effective community health care. Objective of this study was to find out which of the various activities that were carried out during the ROME posting helped them to achieve the required knowledge and skills to provide effective Community Health Care.Methods: A descriptive study was conducted among 101 undergraduate MBBS students who participated in the ROME posting under the Department of Community Medicine of a medical college in Puducherry. Predesigned and pretested questionnaire was used to get the feedback regarding the various teaching-learning methods applied during this ROME posting which was carried out for one full month and about various activities that were carried out by the students such as clinical examination, data collection, data entry and analysis, development of IEC materials and their administration, organizing medical camps, maintaining drug inventory, sanitation campaign and report writing under the supervision of Intern, PG and faculty.Results: “Learning through performing individual tasks” was the most popular teaching-learning method. “Conducting survey” and “data entry” were the most sought after activities by the students.Conclusions: ROME posting helps in motivating undergraduate medical students to apply the principles of comprehensive approach towards various medical problems and thereby fulfill the ultimate aim of creating efficient Community Health Care Providers.