In our day - to - day life we come across many situations where we may be at a loss to find a solution. If we consider the problems faced by developing countries like ours, the problems seem un-surmountable. However simple and locally available solutions exist for most of these situations, it just requires a scientific and rational application of our knowledge. Science has been defined as, "A systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation." Medical students, who are studying one of the many branches of Science, are required to acquire such skills. Hence project work has been included in their curriculum as per new regulations of Medical Council of India. Towards this objective, we at PSM department of Smt. NHL Municipal Medical College, Ahmedabad decided that students should do their projects with enthusiasm and in a different way.

Problem Solving for Better Health (PSBH) is a global movement in over thirty countries and spread over five continents. It is a programme that encourages people of all walks of life to explore innovative ideas to bring better health to people. This movement is coordinated in India by Health Action by People (HAP) Trivandrum. fourty two colleges are all over India have been covered till now.Thus we decided to coordinate with HAP and bring this new movement to our college. Here medical students are encouraged to attend a two-day workshop. The workshop aims at sensitizing medical students on community health problems and providing them with the skills mentioned below.
· Formulate a Research problem
· Make Hypothesis
· Develop proper action plan to test the hypothesis
· Implement the action plan
· Analyze and interpret the data to assess the success or failure
· Write and present the final project report

The principal objective, however, is to provide the medical students with first hand experience in understanding the common health problems in the community and attempt solutions, wherever possible within their means and resources.

Though the process was initiated in December 2000, due to disastrous Earthquake in January 2001, it was postponed to 7th August 2001.
It was a totally new concept for all of us. I was invited as a resource person in such workshops at two places in Karnataka (Somaiya Medical College, Bangalore and Medical College, Adichunchunagiri) in June 2001. It was a wonderful teaching training experience.

As we know the constraints of the Govt. / Semi-Govt. institutions for financing such programs, we were at very much ease as we knew that the program was sponsored by HAP.
Initially we decided to involve the students on voluntary basis. We indeed got good response from the students and 72 out of 94 students volunteered to participate. Ultimately, the whole batch of 94 students participated actively in the projects.

Finally the program that was going to give us many invaluable things, started with very much enthusiasm for 2 days (7th and 8th August 2001). Dr. C R Soman; former Chairman of HAP, Dr. V. Raman Kutty; Chairman of HAP, Dr. Vijay Kumar; secretary HAP, Dr. B.S. Garg; Professor and Head of the P& SM department MGIMS Vardha and Dr. Sherin Verky; Postgraduate student of P & SM at MGIMS were among our valuable guests and external facilitators.
At our institute, it was a coordinated effort of Medical Education Unit (MEU) and our department, so as internal facilitators in each group we had teachers from MEU and Department of P & SM. We invited almost all main office bearers from various institutions in the city.

Same workshop for the batch-2000 (128 students) was held on 3rd and 4th September 2002 for two days.

On the first day after fine start and with nice group work, students came out with practical problems they face or witness in routine life. They came up with common problems of Anaemia, Tuberculosis, Diarrhea and also with unique problems of occupational hazards of traffic police, hospital waste management, mosquito menace etc. All groups identified tobacco use and stress among medicos as problems. They had discussion at length of the selected problems in each group and at the time of presentation.

On second day of workshop, the students came up with protocols of selected problems with same enthusiasm. Students did learn many things with group work and it was their first experience for such kind of large-scale innovative group work. At the end students and external as well as internal facilitators expressed their emotions for the whole program and interactions.

Students were happy to receive the certificates at the end of the program.
Meanwhile HAP invited our faculty members to join them as external facilitators to conduct such workshops in three medical colleges namely Al-Ameen Medical College, Bijapur, Karnataka, Maharaja Scindia Medical College, Gwalior and Government Medical College, Indore, Mahatma Gandhi medical College, Raipur, Medical College, Jhansi and Medical College, Bhopal. It was a challenging task and we complied with our best efforts. In our state we can proudly said that we are able to conduct same workshops at Govt. Medical College, Rajkot, Pramukh Swami Medical College, Karamsad and Govt. Medical College, Surat. GMC, rajkot and PSMC, Karamsad are going to held reunion workshop and second workshop in September-2003.

After passing their Second Professional year exams students of the first workshop started doing their projects under the guidance of faculty of our department on the identified problems. Some changes were required in the projects keeping in mind the feasibility of time and finance. Everyday they came up with practical problems. They did realize the difficulties of research and how to overcome them.

Finally students did the needed hard work of review of literature, data collection, analysis of data and report writing. It was amazing to see them working hard and making beautiful reports. Most of them used computers and also used software EPI-6 and EPI-2000 for the analysis. It was very much pleasing to see computers of the department occupied by the students.

This year 3rd workshop of PSBH for V semester Students (135 students) will be held in September-2003 at our Institute.

At the end, we can proudly say that our students have really done their job well and upto the mark. Whatever expectations we had, they have fulfilled quite satisfactorily. We are determined to continue the same for coming years for the subsequent batches of undergraduate students and Intern doctors during their Community Medicine posting.

We hope & trust that our experience will be multiplied manifolds.

First PSBH workshop at Smt. NHLMMC (99 students): 7th and 8th August 2001
First Reunion Workshop : 2nd September 2002
Second PSBH workshop (128 students) : 3rd and 4th September 2002
Third PSBH workshop (135 students) : 15th and 16th September 2003