Ayurvedic graduates play an important role in the primary healthcare delivery system of our country. At present, there are around 250 institutions that offer graduate-level training in the system all over India. In current practice, an institutionally qualified ayurvedic graduate is supposed to carry out the patient examination in both modern as well as ayurvedic perspectives before devising the treatment strategy. However, despite having a curriculum that contains topics related to the essential clinical skills, this education system has not been able to produce skillful clinicians. The exposure to basic clinical skills is inadequate and it is presently noticed that institutionally qualified ayurvedic doctors are more inclined towards making a diagnosis on the modern parlance rather than formulating a diagnosis based on ayurvedic concepts. This is further compounded by the fact that there are no uniformly accepted guidelines in the approach to ayurvedic diagnosis owing to differences of opinion amongst the Ayurvedic physicians. In case of Ayurveda, the understanding of the disease in terms of nidāna (etiology), dosa (dysfunction), and dūsya (target tissues), as well as the stages of progress of the disease, are considered to be crucial in formulating the treatment protocol.

Hence, imparting clinical skills, especially in the domain of ayurvedic diagnosis, to budding ayurvedic physicians is the need of the hour. Kottakkal Ayurveda School of Excellence aims at imparting advanced knowledge and clinical skills to physicians on ayurvedic diagnosis, thus enabling them to successfully implement these in their day to day practice. The programme is based on the concept of “competency-based education” with the objective of nurturing health professionals who can practice Ayurveda at a defined level of proficiency, in accordance with its basic concepts and practices. The programme will also cover topics like updates on investigatory procedures, communication skills, teamwork, ethics and documentation.

Program Objectives:

Learning outcomes at the end of the programme are the ability to

1. Appreciate dosha/ dhatu lakshanas in diseased states
2. Identify patient specific nidanas of respective diseases.
3. Assess key ayurvedic therapeutic indicators (including agni, koshta, prakriti, stage of the disease, kala, etc)
4. Application of Dashavidha pareeksha in planning treatment protocol
5. Ayurvedic Diagnostic approach in
   1. Neurology
   2. Rheumatology
   3. Dermatology
   4. Gastro enterology
   5. Cardiology
6. Physical examination techniques in each system
7. System wise Investigation and interpretation

Program Duration and Structure:

5 day continuous programme with 7 credit hours per day.