DOI: 10.36347/sjams.2014.v02i01.003

Pages: 13-18

Ayurveda workforces are increasingly being recognized by many segments of the society and have been put in several programmes be it curative or preventive aspects of health care. This does not happen universally across all the strata of our society owing to several reasons. The teaching, training and the curriculum of Ayurveda course (BAMS) pencil in lot of skepticism among the elites of other systems of medicine and many other people concerned with public health. Hence an assessment was carried out to find out the suitability of Swathavritta Vijnan syllabus of BAMS course for meeting the public health technical and leadership skill requirements. The detailed syllabus was obtained from the Central Council of Indian Medicine for the purpose of analysis. It was found that the syllabus is very comprehensive and encompasses many subjects which are relevant to the technical and leadership skill requirements in public health. The broad outlines of the subjects include concept of health, personal hygiene, occupational and environmental health, epidemiology (including clinical epidemiology), school health programme, health care system in India, national health programmes, family welfare programme, maternal and child health, primary health care, preventive geriatrics, international health, disaster management and practical section include immunization, health survey, visiting primary health center etc. From this assessment it can be concluded that the teaching and training imparted in Ayurvedic institutions as per the syllabus of Swathavritta of BAMS is up to the mark and can help in meeting the technical and leadership skills of public health workforce in India.