Background: The Family Adoption Program (FAP), mandated by the National Medical Commission, integrates community-based learning into undergraduate medical education. This program aims to offer Indian medical graduates a valuable learning experience in community-based health care and improving social accountability. This study explores the program’s strengths, challenges, facilitators, barriers, and key performance indicators from faculty and student perspectives in a single institution. Materials and Methods: This qualitative study was conducted at Karpaga Vinayaga Institute of Medical Sciences and Research Centre over a period of 2 weeks, from October 18 to 29, 2024. Free listing, a systematic technique, was employed to explore the strengths and challenges of the FAP among 30 prefinal MBBS students who had previously participated in the program. Force field analysis was conducted with six interns to identify the facilitators and barriers influencing the implementation of FAP. In addition, a cobweb diagram was used among 6 faculty members of the Department of Community Medicine to assess the current status of key performance indicators related to FAP. Results: FAP strengthened student engagement and improved communication with the community. A key facilitator was that it enabled institutions to act as a vital link between the government and the people. Cobweb analysis among faculties found that experiential learning by students and institutional healthcare utilization performed better than behavioral change among the community and the provision of community-based solutions. Conclusions: FAP improved experiential learning, healthcare utilization, and baseline data collection but faces logistical challenges that limit its impact and highlights need for improved community-based actions.
Naidu et al. (Thu,) studied this question.