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Attitude, ethics, and communication are key attributes in the doctor-patient relationship and to strengthen these qualities, the National Medical Commission, the body that regulates medical education and medical professionals in India introduced a course called Attitudes, Ethics and Communication (AETCOM) in the undergraduate medical curriculum. The objective of this study was to ascertain the perceptible qualitative influence of the modules in communication in the AETCOM course and to obtain feedback on its implementation. In this cross-sectional study, the attitude of medical students in all stages of training including internship was first explored using a Communication Skills Attitude Scale. Out of 27 modules in AETCOM course, five modules named foundations of communication deal with communication, and they are taught from the first to final professional years of training. After introducing communication modules in AETCOM for all professional years, feedback was collected from interns who had completed training in all modules. The interns provided feedback with a validated scale and two focused group discussions. Additionally, feedback from faculty involved in teaching AETCOM was analyzed. There was a significant increase in the positive attitude scores in the final year and internship compared to the first year. Eighty percent of the interns agreed that communication modules in AETCOM were useful and that they equipped them with the communication skills required for actual practice during their internship. Faculty agreed that these modules motivated the students to acquire communication skills. However, faculty also felt that these modules alone may not be sufficient to learn communication skills.

This paper is a bibliometric overview and evaluation of peer-reviewed articles on governance in higher education. The study uses meta-data from the Scopus journal repository, retrieved using relevant keywords. We analyse the data in VOSviewer software. A content analysis of selected papers is undertaken to comprehend the thematic focus of the knowledge domain. Results show that the field of this research topic has grown exponentially both qualitatively and quantitatively. The conceptual dynamics of the literature unfold the multidimensionality of the topic of this inquiry. Our significant contributions are the scholarly audit of higher education governance research and the identification of several structured research questions for future investigations. This is a maiden attempt to employ bibliometric and content analysis for science mapping and qualitative review in the topic of inquiry.