Dr D Sunil Kumar [IFI 2025] FAIMER Project Turned into Two Nationally Funded Multicentre Studies
Dr D Sunil Kumar MBBS, MD, PhD, MBA, IFI 2025
Professor & Head, Dean (Students' Welfare)
JSS Medical College, JSS Academy of Higher Education & Research (JSS AHER)
Mysore, India
Dr D Sunil Kumar (IFI 2025) Professor of Community Medicine and Dean (Students’ Welfare) at JSS Academy of Higher Education & Research, Mysuru, India, has received approval for two research projects under the 2026 ICMR–NMC joint call, “Research for Strengthening and Enhancing Quality of Medical Education.”
Both projects evolved from the educational innovation initiated during his International FAIMER Institute fellowship, “Integrating Digital Case-Based Learning to Enhance Clinical Reasoning in Community Medicine.”
The first, an ICMR–NMC Small Grant, will develop, validate and multicentrically evaluate CaseStep, a competency-based digital case-based learning model designed to strengthen clinical reasoning and public health decision-making among undergraduate medical students.
The second, an ICMR–NMC Intermediate Grant, TRACK-AI India, is a multicentre cluster-randomised study evaluating a CBME-integrated framework for the responsible use of generative artificial intelligence and digital case-based learning to strengthen clinical reasoning in undergraduate medical education.
Together, these projects represent the progression of a FAIMER fellowship idea from educational needs assessment and prototype development to rigorous multicentre research with the potential to inform wider medical education practice.
Dr. Kumar is especially grateful to his FAIMER mentor, Dr. Sucheta Dandekar, whose guidance, encouragement and thoughtful mentorship helped shape the evolution of this work. He also gratefully acknowledges Dr. Waqar M. Naqvi and Dr. Sushma Prabhath for their valuable scholarly input and collaboration, as well as the faculty of the International FAIMER Institute and his fellow IFI participants, whose feedback, dialogue and collaborative learning helped strengthen the project.
This journey reflects an important value of the FAIMER experience: transforming locally identified educational challenges through scholarship, mentorship, collaboration and leadership into scalable, evidence-generating solutions.
CaseStep is now a functioning digital learning platform and continues to provide the educational foundation for this expanding programme of research.
A big congratulations to Dr D Sunil Kumar!