The Department of Community Health provides primary care to the rural, urban and tribal communities nearby and serves as a training ground for medical, nursing and paramedical students. Caring for the poor and marginalised has continued to be at the centre of our philosophy.
In the early 1900s, our founder, Dr. Ida Scudder began to visit the villages in the countryside around Vellore with a bullock or horse-drawn cart. A small team would load the cart with medicines and set up a ‘roadside clinic’ under a tree, following a regular pattern, and treat all comers.
Soon motorised vehicles replaced the carts, and this rural outreach programme has been a feature of CMC’s work ever since, and caring for the poor and marginalised has continued to be at the centre of our philosophy. CMC’s Community Health And Development Programme or CHAD was established in 1957 with its training centre, which functions as a now 130-bedded secondary level base hospital. In 2015-16, the CHAD hospital attended to 88,916 outpatients and 10,733 inpatients, including 3,243 women who were delivered in the facility.
A special highlight of the programme includes Counselling services. The most common psychological problems in the community include those related to maladjustment between spouses, alcoholism and HIV, for which counselling and free legal aid and advice is provided. The counsellors are regularly invited to the Special Prison for Women for counselling its registered inmates. The prison authorities also refer clients who need help to this centre. So does “Udhavaum Ullangal”, a voluntary organisation. After counselling the clients may be referred to MHC, the domestic violence protection officer or a short-stay home.
The education of doctors, nurses and Allied Health professionals is central to the vision of the Department. Some of the educational initiatives include the Community Orientation Programme for first-year medical students introduced in 1975, the Epidemiology Resource Centre for training professionals in research launched in 1985 and MD programme in Community Medicine started in 1974 and the Masters in Public Health Programme started in 2009.
Community Development projects
The Community Health Department has established a network of community-based healthcare throughout the Kaniyambadi Block, allocated to it by the government. There are two day-care centres for the elderly, functioning in two villages in Kaniyambadi rural block, which serve 38 beneficiaries. Basic medical services, occupational therapy, recreation, health education, nutritional support and counselling are offered. Reproductive health and family life education in the adolescent health programme for girls has been underway for school-going children. The demand from schools and colleges for conducting such programmes on an ongoing basis has been increasing in both rural and urban areas, and CMC has begun working regularly with organisations like Students Partnership Worldwide India (SPW) to broaden the outreach.
The Jawadhi Hills Tribals Project, initiated in 1980 for the much less developed Jawadhi Hills area, is home to a population of 30,000. There are 11 panchayats and about 175 hamlets. Each hamlet is a cluster of 20 to 40 houses, and many of them are difficult to reach because of the hilly terrain. The primary beneficiaries are the farming communities most of whom subsist on meagre and uncertain daily wages from labouring.
The project aims to improve maternal and child health through regular clinic-based antenatal care, growth monitoring of children, nutrition education and ambulance services. (Support the project to help improve tribal health and development)
In 2014, a permanent healthcare facility, the C.K Job Tribal Health and Development Centre, was inaugurated. An important facet of the work in Jawadhi Hills is the development of a scholarship scheme aimed at providing Nursing and AHS training for tribal youth.
The Community Health Department has achieved major improvements in health indicators such as infant and maternal mortality, and almost universal immunisation coverage has drastically reduced the impact of infectious diseases in their area of work.
Training provided:
M.D. Community Medicine
Short-term training courses
Master of Public Health (MPH) programme
The Master of Public Health (MPH) programme, offered by the Christian Medical College Vellore since 2009, is affiliated with the Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala.
This is a two-year programme, of which the first year is residential, predominantly spent in classroom and field-based learning in CMC Vellore, while the second year is mainly for the completion of a research project, to be submitted as a dissertation. The course will commence on the 1st of July of each academic year.
This programme aims to develop public health personnel who will be able to:
Core competencies expected to be achieved by the student at the end of the programme include the ability to:
Course components:
Electives:
Internship:
The last two months of the two-year MPH course is a period of exposure to a public health organisation to gain experience in field-level activities, data management and programme management.
Network of organisations:
Some of the institutions where previous students have done their internship/electives include Christian Fellowship Hospital, Oddanchatram; Tribal Health Initiative, Sittilingi; Christian Hospital, Bissam Cuttack; Lady Willingdon Hospital Manali; Bangalore Baptist Hospital, Bethany Hospital; Ashwini-Gudalur Adivasi Hospital; Gandhini Health Care Home, Barwadih, Jharkhand; Rural Development Trust, Anantapur; Institute of Public Health, Bangalore; Christian Institute of Health Sciences and Research (CIHSR), Dimapur; Asha Kiran Society, Lamptaput; and hospitals of the Emmanuel Hospital Association (EHA) at Fatehpur, Raxaul, Madhepura, Herbertpur, Mussoorie etc.
Further details of the MPH including distribution of credits for each course are available at: https://www.sctimst.ac.in/Academic%20and%20Research/Academic/Programmes/MPH/
Details regarding the college (CMC Vellore), eligibility criteria, faculty, fees and facilities available to students are available in the prospectus of the Christian Medical College, Vellore at: http://www.cmch-vellore.edu/SITES/Education/prospectus.pdf
M. D. Community Medicine
The three-year postgraduate residency in Community Medicine offered by the Christian Medical College is affiliated with the Tamil Nadu Dr. M.G.R. Medical University, Chennai, Tamil Nadu. The course aims to train medical doctors to be public health experts and teachers, with competency in the following areas:
In addition, the training provided at the Christian Medical College, Vellore during this course, also equips candidates to organize and provide primary and secondary health care services, which is a unique feature of this programme.
Details of the course syllabus are given at: https://www.tnmgrmu.ac.in/index.php/syllabus-and-curriculum/syllabus-regulations-medical.html
Broad areas of learning for the M.D. Community Medicine course at CMC Vellore:
1st year
2nd year
3rd year
Details regarding eligibility, admission and course fees are available in the Prospectus issued by the Christian Medical College, Vellore.
Short-term training courses:
Basic Epidemiology
Principles and Practice of Epidemiology
Epidemiological techniques are useful not only in clinical and field-based research but also in clinical decision making and health management.
This two-week course exposes the participant to epidemiological methods, statistical analysis of data and computer use and is designed for medical college faculty, postgraduate students, health managers and researchers who have not had any formal training in epidemiology and research methodology.
Course content:
– Clinical trials
– Cohort studies
– Case-control studies
– Cross-sectional studies
– Ecological studies
The course is usually conducted in the 2nd half of July at the Community Health Training Centre (CHTC), in the Christian Medical College campus at Bagayam, Vellore. The CHTC guest house is located near the training centre and has board and lodging facilities. Accommodation at CHTC will be based on availability, on a first-come-first-served basis.
Course co-ordinator:
Dr. Kuryan George
Epidemiology Resource Centre
Department of Community Health
CMC Vellore
Ph: 2284207
Fax:91-416-2262268
Email: chad@cmcvellore.ac.in
Advanced courses in epidemiology: Clinical Trials
Well-planned and properly conducted clinical and field trials can provide valuable information, which can have a considerable impact on clinical and public health interventions. This course is planned to provide skills to the participants in randomization techniques, sample size calculation, masking manoeuvres, preparation of forms and data analysis of clinical trials, including the use of multivariate techniques. This course will be conducted in the second half of November.
Course Duration: 1 Week
Advanced courses in epidemiology: Case-Control Studies
Case-control studies are probably the most elegant of all epidemiological study designs. A large proportion of articles appearing in medical journals are based on case-control studies. The relative ease with which case-control studies can be carried out is offset by the difficulty in comprehending the rationale underlying the study design. This course is aimed at enabling the participants to design, conduct, and analyse valid case-control studies. The course will also enable the participants to critically evaluate case-control studies appearing in medical journals. This course will be conducted in the second half of November.
Course Duration: 1 Week
Eligibility: The applicant must be familiar with the basic principles of epidemiology and biostatistics. Previous attendance at the introductory course in epidemiology is desirable.
Venue: Community Health Training Centre (CHTC) in the Christian Medical College campus at Bagayam.
Course coordinator:
Dr. Kuryan George
Epidemiology Resource Centre
Department of Community Health
CMC Vellore
Ph: 2284207
Fax:91-416-2262268
Email: chad@cmcvellore.ac.in
Health economics: Economic basis of healthcare interventions
This three-day short course in health economics is usually held in July or August, for which dates and application forms will be available at the CMC Vellore website, in April, of the same year.
This is an introductory course designed for those involved in decision-making regarding the choice of healthcare technologies. It is meant for health administrators, researchers, medical college teachers, post-graduate students, etc. A background in economics is not necessary to apply for the course.
The course covers the following:
Course coordinator:
Dr. Jasmin Prasad
Professor
Department of Community Health
CMC Vellore
Ph: 2284207
Fax:91-416-2262268
Email: chad@cmcvellore.ac.in
Qualitative research methods: How to do qualitative studies.
This is a one-week course on ‘How to do qualitative studies’. Qualitative studies provide an avenue for exploring areas of research which are difficult to quantify. This methodology also provides avenues to explore the processes rather than outcomes of various activities involved in creating a better tomorrow. This one-week course is aimed at health professionals, especially medical/nursing faculty and provides hands-on experience in carrying out qualitative studies. The course is usually conducted in August every year. Details of the application process are announced on the website of the Christian Medical College Vellore.
Course coordinator:
Dr. Shantidani Minz
Professor
Department of Community Health
CMC Vellore
Ph: 2284207
Fax:91-416-2262268
Email: chad@cmcvellore.ac.in
The Head
Department of Community Health
Christian Medical College Vellore
Bagayam, Vellore – 632002
Tamil Nadu, India
Email us :
chad@cmcvellore.ac.in
04162284207
Mon-Fri: 8 am to 4.30 pm
( Sat : 8 am to 12:30 pm)
