A narrative review on the experience of “Family Adoption Programme” in a tertiary care institute

Family Adoption Programme (FAP) aims to provide an experiential learning opportunity to Indian medical graduates towards community-based health care and thereby equity in health. FAP is recommended as a part of curriculum of Community Medicine subject and should begin from first professional year with competencies being spread in ascending manner for entire MBBS training program. The family adoption should preferably include villages not covered under PHCs/RHTC adopted by the medical college. Medical students may be divided into teams and each team may be allotted visits with five families per student. A brief sensitization session on the needs and competencies of Family Adoption Programme (FAP) as recommended by the National Medical Council of India was conducted which was followed by sensitization of the students to the FAP document prepared by the department along with hands on practice. Then the students along with their team members visited nearby three villages (Tenmathur, Endal and Kolakudi) for their first family adoption visit. During the visit, they interacted with the family and details were documented, the mentors refined the corrections of the document, and then the students were made to present their families in the power point presentation with their reflective experience of the first family adoption programme visit.