Perception, best practices, challenges and attitude of faculty regarding the foundation course

Background: The foundation course is a mandatory component of the Competency-Based Medical Education (CBME) curriculum introduced by the National Medical Commission (NMC) for first-year MBBS students in India. It aims to facilitate a smooth transition from school to the medical college environment by focusing on communication skills, ethics, stress management, and orientation to the medical profession. Faculty perception plays a pivotal role in the successful implementation and sustainability of this course. Objectives: To assess perception, best practices, challenges and attitude of faculty regarding the foundation course. To assess perception of faculty regarding conduct modules in online and longitudinal mode. Methods: A cross-sectional, descriptive study was conducted among teaching faculty involved in the delivery of the foundation course indifferent medical colleges. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire comprising both closed and open-ended questions. Quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, while qualitative responses were thematically analyzed. Results: The Faculty found that Foundation course helps students to enhance their confidence and reduce apprehension towards course (58.92%). They also opined that it helps students to realize importance of skills and communication (55.35%). 48.21% opined it is time consuming and requires lot of efforts. Enhancement of language and computer skills (71.8%) can be taken in online mode. Field visit to Community Health Centre (73.5%) is better conducted longitudinally. Professional development including ethics (59.2%), skills module (57.1%), Enhancement of Language computer skills (38.8%), sports and extra curricular activities (42.9%) should be in longitudinal mode. However, concerns were raised about the course's duration, student engagement, and redundancy as challenges in certain topics. Regarding the best practices in conducting Foundation course suggestions included interactive teaching learning methods. Conclusion: Faculty members supported the objectives of the foundation course but advocate for improvements in content delivery, duration, and instructional methods. Institutional efforts to incorporate and adopt hybrid teaching approaches like online and longitudinal modes for few topics and investing in faculty development can enhance the effectiveness of the foundation course and its alignment with CBME goals.