Exploring the scope of sleep medicine in current medical teaching and utility of CD Based Learning Resource Material

Background: Only recently health professionals have started recognizing sleep disorders as one of the commonest cause of morbidity. Only in the last 50 years have scientists and physicians attempted a systematic study of the physiology and disorders of sleep. The situation is changing in India too. About a decade ago the sleep medicine started developing but remained in the domain of Pulmonary Medicine. Through various societies, meetings, workshops it has now percolated to physiologists, neurologists, psychiatrists and allied specialists. However, there is still a gap in the awareness about sleep and its disorders among health professionals. Limited information is available regarding sleep education in current medical curriculum in India and globally.Aims: (i) To find out the existence of a course or module on sleep medicine in any of Government medical colleges in India. (ii) To explore feasibility of using Learning Resource Material (LRM) on CDs for Continuing Medical Education.Methods: As an outcome of Sleep Symposium held at National Academy of Medical Sciences (India) conference at AIIMS, Jodhpur, a survey was carried out among 100 Government Medical Colleges in India along with Resource Material consisting of didactic teaching material distributed through Compact Disc (CD) to explore utility of the method.Results: Response rate from medical colleges was 41 %. Ninety five percent of medical colleges denied of having any structured course or module on sleep medicine. Fifty percent felt that such module should be included for both UG and PG while 70 % agreed for PG only. Regarding cost effective delivery methods for the content of such a module, majority responded in favour for an online or DVD based with one of the content experts as a resource person with his physical presence. All respondent were highly satisfied by the content of CD.Conclusion: Sleep education is almost non-existent in most of medical schools in India. Survey elicited average response from academic community. However, sleep education has been perceived by 70 % participants to be included in PG curriculum. The content of PowerPoint presentations was considered highly satisfying and using multi-modal technology for sleep education is regarded to be an effective delivery method by majority. It can be concluded that there is felt but unmet need of a course on sleep medicine in our existing medical curriculum using information technology.Key words: Sleep module, CD based CME, Continuing Education, sleep education