It is imperative for aspiring healthcare professionals to not only have a strong grip on medical knowledge but also to possess unquestionable history-taking skills that are exhibited in conjuncture with empathy and gentle behavior on behalf of the doctor. To achieve this, VFAHT-DUHS VCAN Division, in collaboration with VFAHT-AIMC Bloodborne Disease Division, organized the ‘Online Hepatitis History taking Workshop’ on Aug 31st – Sept 1st. The workshop, targeted at medical students from the second year and above, aimed to impart invaluable knowledge regarding hepatitis and its specific history-taking process that would lead to a confirmed diagnosis while brushing up on ethics and non-textbook principles of history-taking.

The Workshop was conducted in two phases:

• The First Phase, conducted on August 31st, included a 2hr speaker session by Onaizah Baqir, MD (Infectious Disease Specialist) residing in the US. She first highlighted the general principles of history taking, associated ethics, the dos, and don’ts, and then she moved on to discussing hepatitis and its disease course before finally concluding it by explaining the hepatitis-specific history taking process to the participants.

This helped reinforce the history-taking knowledge of the participants along with strengthening their hold on knowledge about hepatitis, its pathology, and disease course.

• The Second Phase, conducted on September 1st, included a practice session for all participants in an effective and organized manner. It was conducted purely by the teams of VFAHT-DUHS and VFAHT-AIMC in collaboration. This session aimed to provide participants the opportunity to implement the acquired knowledge they gained in the speaker session and translate it to enhance their pre-existing skills regarding history-taking. They were given a chance to act as doctors and take a proper history of acting patients (VFAHT moderators) to diagnose their condition, which was essentially a type of hepatitis.

In conclusion, the Workshop was successful in achieving its aims and was very well-received by all participants. For most of them, especially in the second year, it was a new and overwhelming experience, but equally rewarding and productive. The overall feedback received was extremely positive as well. It was a kind workshop and the Team hopes that they can conduct more such workshops in the future with a more diverse set of topics and diseases to cover.