BENGALURU: Realising the importance of strong medical education and the need to train professionals properly, a team of young medical students from Bagalkot has developed an application, which will help aspiring medical professionals learn in their mother tongue- Kannada.
Prepare Edutech (PrepEd) teaches para-medics and nursing to SSLC and PUC students and was launched in June. A team of three architects, doctors, two paramedics, ten educators and freelancers (who are trained doctors and consultants from across the state) are training the young aspirants.
Dr Sandeep G Huilgol, Co-Founder and CEO of PrepED, and Consultant Nephrologist and Transplant Physician told The New Indian Express, “In other countries like Germany, China and Japan, doctors and para-medics are not trained in English, but know the skills because they are well versed in their mother tongue. During the pandemic, I noticed that young para-medics were unable to take simple blood samples, due to a lack of proper training.”
He added that they realised that these para-medics have learned lessons in their mother tongue till PUC, hence, they get intimidated when they have to learn things in English. The idea seems to have clicked as there are already 800 users, apart from many others accessing the free video links. While there are students from across the state using the application, most are from Bengaluru rural, outskirts of Bengaluru, Chamrajanagar, Holenarasipura, Hubballi, Dharwad, Puttur and Bidar.
Dr Huilgol said, “This app is for students who are not well versed in English, but those from Kannada medium. It has been observed that students today just learn for the exams , but don’t understand concepts because of language-barrier.”