King George´s Medical University (KGMU)

To be an outstanding university of medical excellence in the world in education, research, and patient care.

To become one of the world´s best providers of high -quality teaching and excellence in medical education, generate outstanding leaders in health sciences, promote multi-disciplinary scientific biomedical research, and provide compassionate, patient-centred care of the highest quality.

1. Effectively implement medical education programs through creativity innovation in teaching, learning and evaluation

2. Inculcate communication skills and scientific temperament among faculty and students through research-oriented activities

3. Enhance competency through knowledge and skills, reading and learning activities, continuous objective-oriented student performance evaluation.

4. Nurture professionalism and behavioural skills in medical professionals.

5. Incorporate medical ethics, moral values, team spirit, responsibilities and sense of integrity in medical faculty and students.

6. Ensure academic, career and personal counselling

7. Collect patient-oriented evidence that matters.

8. Adopt transparency and accountability in academic and administrative activities

9. Develop, design and implement innovative and translational scientific discoveries

10. Discover, understand and improve the health of populations, communities and societies. 

A. Medical Education 

The university, since its foundation more than 100 years ago, has been focused on educating physicians and surgeons of the highest tier. Currently, it graduates more than 250 doctors (MBBS candidates) and 500 specialist doctors (residents/fellows) every year. It also graduates more than 100 dental surgeons annually as well. The institution's medical college (school of medicine) regularly ranks among the top ten medical colleges in India to train at, amongst the over 500 medical schools in India. In the last twenty years, KGMU has also been training a large number of nurses and paramedical staff to serve the nation. 

B. Healthcare 

KGMU is the flagship public hospital of the state of Uttar Pradesh, which is the most populous province in India with over 200 million inhabitants. Equipped with over 4000 beds, it is also the largest residential hospital in India. KGMU counts of more than a million outpatient hospital visits every year, and over 50,000 indoor admissions as well. 

C. Biomedical Research 

Finally, KGMU has long been one of the highest producers of biomedical research in India. Our focus is especially on clinical research, considering our large patient volumes. For instance, one of its faculty members has been the principal investigator the largest clinical trial in human history (conducted on over 2 million individuals). Many of its faculty have innovated in providing healthcare services, surgical operations, devices or techniques. 

Innovative projects on higher education* (Please, highlight the most significant initiatives of your institution related to the following topics) 

To ensure that the weakest strata of society have access to education, KGMU has long relied on an annually conducted transparent entrance examination. Around 0.1 0.5% of candidates are selected every year for medical school, after which their education is heavily subsidized. Students who can pay are asked to pay merely 350 USD per year in total, while those who cannot afford this get this funded through various sources. 

To ensure equitable healthcare access, KGMU charges one of the lowest rates in the county for any major or minor healthcare service. Outpatient consultation rate per visit is currently I INR (0.02 USD); while the cost of a coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) for instance is around 8000 INR (100-120 USD). Charges of each procedure have long been publicly listed on our website, an initiative far preceding any such by most other healthcare institutions in the country. 

In terms of quality, we have always been ranked amongst the ten best healthcare institutions in the country amongst the hundreds of hospitals participating in the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) of the Government of India. Thus, we ensure that the socio-economically challenged individuals have the best possible healthcare access as well; resulting in greater equity.

Notably, we were the first medical school established in the current area of Northern India; while also having many firsts to our name. For instance, the first Department of Orthopaedic Surgery in India was opened here which also imparted for the first time a post-graduate specialization in India in Orthopaedic Surgery. Very recently, the Department of Pediatric Orthopaedic Surgery is the first such department in India, created to ensure a centre of excellence in teaching and training of future specialists in this field. The university' faculty of medicine was the first medical school in India to transition to utilizing solely MCQs for testing the theoretical knowledge of MBBS candidates; moving away from essay-based examinations which focused on rote memorization. We were one of the earliest in the country to fully implement the objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) format for assessing practical skills of MBBS candidate. We are one of the few regional training centres for the Medical Council of India; along with being one of the handful of centres in the world that act as an examination institution for the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland. 

As a healthcare institution, we have always had a close relationship with the society around us. From the start, we have served as the main referral hospital of the state of Uttar Pradesh, along with serving large parts of the states of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, and the country Nepal. For large portions of the society around us, we act as an institution providing primary, secondary and tertiary healthcare access, considering our high-quality yet inexpensive services. 

We annually organize major medical trips and charitable camps in rural and remote areas in order to bring healthcare access to the poor. The Department of Community Medicine has either adopted or brought under its ambit a large number of community health centres; in which it ensures quality healthcare services are delivered.

As a healthcare institution, we perceive the challenge of inequitable access to healthcare as a critical challenge which India and other developing countries must tackle. While we have long been working to alleviate this through our main thrust areas of training high-quality doctors and healthcare delivery, we have also embraced innovative practices in this regard. 

For instance, in order to make our medical graduates cognizant of this challenge, we utilize a year-long longitudinal model of a close relationship with a poor family. Here, each graduate is paired up with a new-born delivered in our labour wards; and then is tasked to remain closely associated with the new-born and his/her family for a minimum period of one year. Our graduates find this experience humbling and report that this strengthens their desire to tackle the challenge of healthcare access.

Considering that sustainability needs leaders and community workers, we have been actively training our graduate and postgraduate doctors to take the lead in becoming lifelong community leaders and speak out on issues of expertise. As the flagship hospital of a state of 200 million individuals, our students benefit from our closeness with the administrative forces. This helps our graduates have the best opportunities for serving the country as medical leaders, often via Provincial Medical Services (PMS) of the state of Uttar Pradesh. 

We also train our graduates to ensure that they turn out to be doctors cognizant of economic sustainability issues of poor families. For instance, while managing admitted patients, faculty members make it a point to question the postgraduate students on the value of an advanced imaging modality which the latter had requested for, to diagnose those patients better. We teach our students to possess both: knowledge and skills to function in an advanced healthcare system, and the resourcefulness to thrive in economically challenged societies as well.

In cognizance of the fact that many of our students serve as medical professionals for underserved populations, we seek to inculcate a mind-set of social responsibility and ‘giving back from day one. This is done both through didactic lectures emphasising their responsibility and a medical care environment that never turns away any person because of financial difficulties. 

Through several initiatives, funds and grants, our residents and fellows manage to ensure that patients requiring management but unable to pay for even our heavily subsidised healthcare services (let alone the large number of for-profit hospitals) get the care they deserve. Many of our practicing graduates have historically waived charges from people unable to pay for a consultation.