Introducing and assessment of FAIR principles of education in teaching biochemistry to I year MBBS students

Background: Recent curriculum is theory based where students just mug up and reproduce in exam with less understanding. It is Exam and marks oriented education. Students show less interest in classes. Presently FAIR (Feedback, Active learning, Individual learning and Relevance) principles of application are practically missing, according to this model students will be naturally motivated to learn. Students will take more responsibility for their own learning. By applying these principles we will improve the effectiveness and efficiency of learning and enhancing learning among students. The objective was to design an effective educational strategy using certain principles of education such as FAIR.Methods: The first batch of the Integrated Curriculum students of the I MBBS program formed the study population. Certain principles of education such as Feedback, Active learning, Individualization of learning and relevance that have been advocated for use to enhance learning, were applied in educational strategies for the implementation of the Integrated Curriculum.Results: By Implementing the FAIR model of integrated curriculum the scores obtained during evaluation and the positive student response validated the enhancement of learning objectively and subjectively.Conclusions: Our collective experience convinced us that designing a curriculum with FAIR model was well worth. 95% students felt it is advantageous with negative perception 35% of students, they felt lengthy and time consuming

STUDY OF SERUM FERRITIN AND D-DIMER LEVELS AS PROGNOSTIC BIOMARKERS IN COVID-19 PATIENTS.

INTRODUCTION: Coronavirus disease 2019, a primarily respiratory illness is considered as the cause of thrombotic disorders. Pro-inflammatory cytokines are one of the responsible causes of cytokine storm syndrome in patients with COVID-19. Coagulopathy and inflammation are associated with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) severity. Hyperinflammation is seen patients which are critically ill with COVID-19 patients. OBJECTIVE: We aimed to investigate the association between several biomarkers such as D-dimer, and serum ferritin and COVID-19 severity. METHODS:The covid patients were divided into mild, moderate and severe groups and the diagnosis of COVID19 is based on purely clinical symptoms and real time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test. Analysis of Serum ferritin was done on fully automated immunology analyzer-SIEMENS based on the principle of chemiluminescence. D-dimer was estimated on m-Lab which is cartridge based. RESULTS: Seeing the baseline characteristics of covid-19 patients, the most prominently seen morbidity was diabetes (40.44%) followed by hypertension (30.33%) and renal dysfunction (6.17%). It was observed that in the severe group the serum ferritin and D-dimer was statistically highly significant (p<0.0001) with mean and SD value of serum ferritin (1779.55 ± 135.74) and D-dimer (16011.45 ± 6247.45) as compared to mild (serum ferritin: 491.31 ± 79.34 and D-dimer: 1720.74 ±1046.47) and moderate groups (serum ferritin: 948.59 ± 279.19 and D-dimer: 6670.98 ±1962.47). CONCLUSION: The elevated serum ferritin and D-dimer were associated with a poor outcome and poor prognosis and could predict the worsening of COVID-19 patients.               &nbsp