Five-star Doctors for the 21st Century

Abstract

The term ‘five-star doctor’ has been promoted to denote the model physician for today's society, who should be able to respond to the needs of both individual patients and their community. The B.P. Koirala Institute of Health Sciences (BPKIHS) has adopted integrated, partially problem-based, organ system and community-oriented curriculum for medical graduates. The various field programmes related to community diagnosis, health care delivery system, family health exercise, epidemiology for health management, managerial skills for health services, and learning in fields are incorporated in the MBBS curriculum. Five-month postings during internships in zonal and district hospitals and one month in district public health offices and primary health centres are unique programmes to make it more socially accountable. Such exposure for MBBS students makes them to attain five-star status, that is, caregiver, decision maker, communicator, community leader and manager. Thus, BPKIHS is working as a pioneer in an endeavour to create five-star doctors for the 21st century.