Embedded Files
Pride, Legacy, Responsibility - The Department of Community Medicine strives to serve the society without fear or favour.
In the beginning, the Surgeon General, Civil Hospitals, Bihar requested the State Medical Officer of Health to engage classes for MBBS students on a part-time basis. The next known fact is that Dr. S.M. Mitra from the State Health Services was appointed full time teacher in the Dept. of Hygiene in 1937.
A couple of years later, in 1939, Dr. Hargobind Prasad, was appointed as Health Officer cum Lecturer in this Department. In 1940, the Department was declared as Department of Preventive & Social Medicine. In 1945 Dr. Hargobind Prasad was promoted as Professor of PSM and perhaps he has the distinction of being the first Prof. of PSM in India. He was given two years extension by Patna University and retired at the age of 62 in 1959.
Dr. J.P. Agrawal took over from Dr. Hargobind Prasad as Head of Dept, PSM, PW Medical College. As was the practice in those days, teachers from this college went to UK to get their post-graduate qualifications Dr. J.P. Agrawal had already obtained DTM&H (Liverpool), DPH & DID (London) qualifications when he joined the Dept. Dr. J.P. Agrawal also holds the distinction of being the first postgraduate student of this Department. He submitted his thesis under the guidance of Dr. NL. Modi and was awarded the MD (PSM) Degree in 1961, after which he was declared Professor.
From 1961 the Department also became a constituent Postgraduate Department of Patna University, conducting PG teaching and awarding postgraduate degrees. About 55 MD Degrees and about 6 Ph.D in Preventive & Social Medicine Degrees have been awarded from 1961 till date. After the retirement of Dr. J.P. Agrawal in 1980, Dr. Surya Bhushan was Professor & Head of Department till his retirement in 2000. Dr. Surya Bhushan was also Principal, Patna Medical College, & Dean Faculty of Medicine, Patna University.
With the designation of the Dept. of PSM as the Department of Community Medicine by the Graduate Medical Education Regulations (1997) of MCI there has been a tremendous increase in scope and mandate of the Department, especially at Patna Medical College. As per Govt. directives it has always participated in National Programmes, Projects and teaching and training programmes of peripheral medical officers.
However shortage of faculty members as well as non teaching staff had been the bane for this Dept in the 85 years of its existence. But in March 2007, the full strength of Faculty Members of this Department was achieved for the first time. The department was inspected by the MCI for recognition of the postgraduate degree (M.D. in PSM) on 11 March 2007. Recognition was granted!
The year 2007 was a milestone in the history of this Department. The Official Websites of the Department and of IAPSM - Bihar were created in 2007. The department has hosted the annual conference of the IAPSM - Bihar Chapter in the years 2006 & 2007.
One of the major projects, the AAPI-Bihar Health Initiative undertaken under international agreements, was started in 2008 with the control and data centre at the department. The public-health software for the project was developed at the data centre.
The faculty of the department undertook important responsibilities in numerous programmes being conducted at the national level - ICDS, IDSP, ICD-10, NIPI etc. starting 2008 onwards.
The department constantly hopes to achieve new heights by maintaining and improving its existing services and introducing new ones. Project ARSH came as another milestone in the development of personnel and resources for achieving the goal of health for all.
The department began providing Hepatitis B and Tetanus vaccination to all medical students of the first professional year, in 2010. Later in 2010, F-IMNCI was started in the department by UNICEF with an inter-departmental collaboration, and systems were enhanced for the training of personnel, especially Medical Officers, from many districts of Bihar. The department got fully equipped with modern audio-visual facilities, and this programme continued through 2011.
In 2013, the department went more international than ever, with Professor and HOD Dr Rashmi Singh presenting a paper at the 20th WONCA held at Prague in the Czech Republic. (See Picture). She was also awarded the International Travel Scholarship by Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP), UK for studying Primary Health Care in UK and Czech Republic. Dr Rashmi Singh and Dr Ranjeet Kumar Sinha, on behalf of Patna Medical College, collaborated with the University of Nottingham School of Clinical Sciences, UK for a study that is probably the largest collaboration that Patna Medical College has ever been a part of, all, the multi-institutional international collaboration REACH.
In 2013-14, a project conducted by Prateek Nishant (a 3rd year MBBS student, later, junior resident in the department) under the aegis of the department, was awarded by ICMR under its STS programme. In 2015, Dr Rashmi Singh and Dr Ranjeet Kumar Sinha participated in the World Congress on Public Health. In 2016, an oral and a poster presentation each were presented by Dr Nishant at the 10th Annual Conference of the Royal College of General Practitioners, Harrogate, UK.
Several workshops, monitoring programmes and educational activities have been conducted over the years. The journey is never-ending........!
Google Sites
Report abuse