Virtual medical education; yet to achieve the expertise

Abstract

This paper explores the different dimensions of newly introduced ‘technology based education in medical field’, known as “Virtual Medical Education”. In order to look at the specification of the project ‘National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL)’ by Ministry of Human Resource and Development (MHRD) Government of India, seven Indian Institute of Technology (IITs) and Indian Institute of Science (IISc) to create technology enhance learning atmosphere in country and to provide mass education through distance learning mode and their plan to enter into medical education through virtual medium. While connecting the idea with the concept of hegemony and power relations, this paper explores the dominant form of knowledge in medicine and public health and the nature of technology which also celebrate the dominance over other forms of medicine by virtual medical education system. It also explores the philosophical understanding of knowledge system and the post-phenomenological underpinning which explores the multiple realities and their impact in the context of contemporary Indian medical education systems. It is not only about the plurality of medical knowledge systems in India rather how the crises of developing countries lead to find out the remedies by adopting the western model of development to cater their local problems and virtual education is seen in the form of technological solution to the Indian mass education problems.