Access health through radio, courtesy KGMU

LUCKNOW :The King George’s Medical University is all set to become the first medical institute in north India to have an FM channel of its own, dedicated to your health and healthy living.

If all goes to plan, you will be able to tune into 89.6 MHz on your transistor radios, audio devices as well as your smart phone.

“We intend to spread awareness in an unconventional manner, where the programmes will be designed to make people understand disease prevention and good health in an easy way and in the local dialect,” said senior faculty member and the brain behind the venture Vinod Jain.

Experts will be interviewed on regional health issues/diseases. “For example, not all people have access to doctors to know all about dengue that is troubling the people of the state a lot at present. But a comprehensive talk show will resolve all queries. And we aim to go ahead keeping these facts in view,” said Prof Jain.

THE FM CHANNEL WILL HOUSED ON THE KGMU CAMPUS AND ITS BROADCAST WILL BE IN A 30 KM RADIUS (AIR DISTANCE)

KGMU vice-chancellor MLB Bhatt said, “Things are in the final stages. We will put the proposal in the executive council meeting tomorrow (Friday) and hope the station will begin broadcast this year itself.” The FM channel will housed on the KGMU campus and its broadcast will be in a 30 km radius (air distance).

The broadcast of health talks on different topics will be pre-announced and people can tune in on the specific date and time to listen. In future, the talk shows will facilitate phone calls from the audience so that a specific query can also be answered, if that has not been included during the talk. Not just the masses but medical students can also benefit from the KGMU radio station. The plan is to record major undergraduate and post-graduate lectures and put them on air so that those students, who missed the lecture, or those from other institutes, may listen to experts/ teachers and benefit from them.

“The radio station will be the first-of-its-kind effort in North India. The future plan is to put the programme on the internet to extend our reach worldwide,” said Jain. He said that once on the internet, the lectures will be accessible anytime and anywhere by students and in this way, “we shall contribute to the education of students across countries.”