Reply to Comments on “A Survey Among Teachers of Psychiatry to Improve the Quality of Undergraduate Training: Outcomes from Karnataka”

We value the comments ¹ made about our article. Psychiatry teaching is mandatory; it has been wrongly noted otherwise in comments. However, learning psychiatry was not mandatory to obtain graduation as it was not incorporated anywhere in the MBBS examination process until 2018. In 2019, a competency-based medical curriculum was implemented, and it has incorporated psychiatry in the second paper of medicine for 50 marks; however, the marks are to be shared with dermatology and respiratory medicine!

The comments have raised questions regarding why some teachers were not keen on the workshop and the probable reasons for the same. We acknowledge the limitation that the survey had not further enquired about the disinterest. The post-workshop focus was on building the online platform for teachers of psychiatry based on their common felt need, and the majority of the participants are active in those platforms. However, we have not assessed the outcome of the workshop on individual teacher or the utility of the workshop.

We missed to mention in the article that all participants of the workshop were provided with many resources and materials that covered various teaching-learning methods such as problem-based learning and other methods tried in the Indian context. ² Many methods were also presented and discussed. We agree that students should be involved at all levels, and it was one of the limitations of our survey. However, as a follow-up of the initiatives, a panel discussion involving medical students and psychiatry teachers from across the state was held at the Annual Conference of Karnataka Chapter of Indian Psychiatric Conference (KANCIPS) in 2019. ³ In another progressive step, the Indian Psychiatric Society has set up a Psychiatry Faculty Training Task Force in March 2020 for the first time, and the authors (AMV and KM are Chairperson and Co-Chairperson, respectively, and MI is International Advisor) have been designated as its office-bearers. We are taking valuable input from teachers and students at all levels for the enhancement of teaching-learning in psychiatry.