The Department of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism, Christian Medical College (CMC), Vellore has won the Royal College of Physicians (London) Excellence in Patient Care Awards 2017 under the category of Medical Education and Training award. Nihal Thomas, professor and head, unit-I of the department received the award recently. “We are the only medical team outside the United Kingdom to win such an award this year under any of the categories,” he said. The award was in recognition for the department’s outstanding work in advancing medical education and training. The judges were impressed by “the multi-professional approach and use of blended learning, with some really innovative approaches”. The department is a centre for diabetes patient care, training, education, basic science, clinical and epidemiological research. Since 2003, the department has developed a nation-wide training programme for doctors, nurse educators and foot-care technicians. The award took note of the department’s efforts in training of healthcare professionals across the country and abroad, thereby increasing the number of trained professionals qualified to handle the diabetes epidemic. It also pointed out that the programme, since 2004, evolved into a distance education programme, training 736 doctors in secondary care diabetes so far. The work done by the department in launching a local foot-care and footwear training programme that has evolved into an intensive training programme for doctors across India, and diabetes counsellor training programme has also found mention.

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