Current Final Year Medical Students’ Response to the Varying Attitudes towards Small Group Tutorial Classes Used in Medical Schools in India

With great interest, we read the article by Shivananda, et al. on the differing perspectives of medical students to small group tutorial classes in India (1), and we thank the authors for conducting this study. Allowing reflections with our own experiences as final year Medical Students at the University of Manchester, we compared and contrasted these views, and wanted to share our opinions. The study does well in establishing that it would be in the best interest of student education within India to increase the availability of smaller group-based teaching within medical schools, evolving from the more traditional didactic learning methods. To yield an improved satisfaction rate in small group teaching, we encourage the authors to integrate the flipped classroom (FC) method, incorporated in medical schools within the United Kingdom, whereby students are given a baseline set of information and resources at the beginning of the week (e.g. e-books, formative quizzes), to get prepared for smaller focused group sessions (2). These clinical case-based activities include discussion-based workshops, which hone in on specific aspects of the content (biopsychosocial, clinical knowledge, basic sciences, etc.). Hew, et al. conducted a meta-analysis, observing student perception on the FC method; it demonstrated drastic increases in understanding, as well as the application of underlying physiology to tackle questions related to clinical practice, with 71% preferring this format to traditional-based learning (3). Further investigations into student perception between lecture-based and FC learning methods would highlight any significance.