Formulating a socially responsible curriculum for the Indian medical graduate: Charting the roadmap for creating socially accountable doctors

Background Competency-based curriculum has opened new opportunities for teaching appropriate attitudes and clinical skills to medical students by focusing on one-to-one training. Foundation training in social responsibility (SR) sets the stage towards integrating SR in the longitudinal training course. Adapting principles of SR during clinical visits to field practice areas alongside vertical integration of community medicine departments with clinical departments with a blueprint of assessment can achieve the integration. Methods We describe the concept of social responsiveness, its contribution to medical ethics and professionalism and the opportunities for SR training within the competency-based curriculum. Socially relevant medical services established per local societal needs by individual medical colleges are discussed with methods of integrating SR training and assessment in the curriculum. Barriers to implementing such a curriculum with suggestions for opportunities are also highlighted. Results Integration of SR values within learning domains, careful selection of learning objectives and devising appropriate teaching strategies, together with incorporating elements of SR during the summative assessment, can work towards integrating SR in the curriculum. Conclusion A socially responsible competency-based curriculum should be able to create future doctors with a first contact with global standards of clinical skills sensitive to local social, cultural and financial needs.