The International Quiz for Medical Undergraduates, the flagship quiz of KMC Manipal, aims to marry the pursuit of medical knowledge with a diverse cultural experience. This year marked the sixth edition of this quiz. After two years of lockdowns and online events, IQMU promised to be grand in magnificence and erudition.
Inauguration Ceremony
The Inauguration Ceremony took place on the morning of 17th June at TMA Pai Hall 3. The chief guest for the function was Lt. Gen. (Dr.) MD Venkatesh, Vice-Chancellor of MAHE, while Dr. C. Shanmugapriya, Educator at Unacademy, was the Guest of Honour. Dr. HS Ballal, Pro-Chancellor of MAHE, and Dr. Sharath K Rao, Dean of Kasturba Medical College, also presided over the event. The ceremony began with an invocation and a welcome address, followed by an introduction of IQMU by the Organising Chairpersons Shailja Sharma and Bhavesh Srivastava. The dignitaries held IQMU in high regard and wished the participants good luck. The quiz was declared open with a final reveal of the IQMU T-shirt.
Prelims 1
The quiz kicked off with the first preliminary round being held at TMA Pai hall 1. A total of 30 teams, each consisting of 2 members, assembled in the halls for the Prelims round, which consisted of 40 MCQ questions from the MBBS curriculum and beyond. A total of 45 minutes were given to fill the responses. Teams were participating from around 26 medical colleges from all over the country, all with solid determination to give their best fight. The competitive atmosphere was palpable, with the members racking their brains for the correct choice while ensuring they kept up with the ticking clock. After the stipulated time, the response sheets were collected for evaluation and scoring. The halls erupted with chatter, and the teams waited eagerly for the results which would decide their fate in the subsequent rounds of the quiz.
Enigma
Cutting Edge, the surgery club of KMC, conducted their event in the afternoon, soon after the first round. Enigma was of escape room style, with medical clues leading you to the following location. The entire event was based in a village setting. Participants scrambled to decrypt the riddles and were aided by the organizers’ various visual cues. The individual solutions for each station also related to each other to form a diagnosis, establishing a Final Connect for the competition. The Interact lecture halls bore witness to animated whispers being shared in pairs as information was retrieved from all corners of the mind to decode the Enigma.
Flatline
Flatline, an enjoyable emergency medicine simulation, was hosted by KMC’s EM club, Tempus Pretioso. Divided into smaller groups, participants followed the story of one very unfortunate Ramesh DiCaprio. Firstly, Mr. DiCaprio suddenly collapsed in his bathroom. Using a manikin with inflatable lungs, participants were shown how to intubate and encouraged to perform it themselves. The next station saw Ramesh faint from Hypoglycaemia. With a diagnosis of Diabetic Ketoacidosis, participants learned how to collect blood for an Arterial Blood Gas Analysis. Mr. DiCaprio was then found choking, and the Heimlich manoeuver was demonstrated. To end his regrettable day, Ramesh DiCaprio met with a car accident. Participants were now instructed on the three steps taken in such situations; manual neck stabilization, placing a cervical collar, and transferring the patient onto a spineboard. Finally, the workshop was capped off by a ‘Choose your Option’ game, where everyone played as doctors having to triage and treat patients after a heavy storm.
Prelims 2
The second round of the quiz was held on the same afternoon at the Anatomy Dissection Hall. Dr. Chandni Gupta presided as the quizmaster for the event. The teams were split into two. One participant solved case scenarios while the other looked at spotters. The answers to both were the same, but each team member had to solve them individually. The round finished in 30 minutes, which marked the end of quizzing on day one.
Jigsaw
Justitia, KMC’s forensic medicine club, organized a murder mystery event for IQMU: JigSaw. It took place the same evening, starting at Interact and leading to various locations around campus. Participants were given the backstory of six murders that had recently taken place. JigSaw, a former doctor, was looking for justice after learning of some terrible secrets being concealed at his job. Now, it was up to them to find him. Similar to a treasure hunt, participants in teams of two had to comb through crime scenes to determine the exact cause of death, and only on answering could they move on to the following location. An elaborate set design with props, lighting, audio, aromas, and corpses lent a sinister and eerie effect. After solving all the puzzles, players decoded JigSaw’s hiding place using pieces of a map they had collected along the way. Tensions were high, as only the five quickest teams could advance to the finale. This two-hour-long action-packed event was a the five quickest teams could advance to the finale. This two-hour-long action-packed event was a true test of participants’ deductive skills.
Gala Night
The casino-themed gala night provided a fun opportunity for participants and organizers to socialize and unwind from stress. A photo booth was set up in collaboration with KMC clubs Lumen and Artefact, complete with quirky props and decorations. Players tested their fortune in various card and dice games. One lucky winner won the exciting grand lottery. After grooving to the DJ’s tunes, players moved to TMA Pai Hall 2 for a sumptuous dinner. The night ended having served its purpose— to provide an escape from the day’s hustle.
Quarter-Finals
The morning of 18th June saw the IQMU quarter-finals take place. All teams sat in anticipation in room Ga of the interact building, waiting for the hour-long round to begin. The quiz was projected onto the screen and consisted of 22 questions, split into five sets, with 30 seconds for each question. All questions were from different medical cases, accompanied by slides, lab results, and radiological scans. The goal of the quiz was not only to solve correctly but also to link the answers to two consecutive questions. This was tested by providing an extra 50-point bonus if the participants could find all the key connections between questions in a set. A quick last look-through of all the questions was given before the round ended and the papers were collected. The session ended with a discussion of the answers and feedback from the attendees.
Wildcard
In an exciting twist, the eliminated teams were given another shot to qualify. The wildcard round was held on the Unacademy app. The eliminated teams gathered in Interact and attempted the quiz on their phones. The team with the most number of correct answers and the shortest time is taken stood first. They qualified for the next round, bringing the total number of semifinalists to 12 teams.
Semi-finals
The semifinals took place in the Interact lecture halls with Dr. M Mukhyaprana Prabhu as the quizmaster. They were kicked off by IQMU’s trademark round— the Mental relay. The teams were divided into two, with one participant ordering examinations to aid the second, who could order investigations and reach a final diagnosis. This was followed by the second leg of the semifinals, called Step-to-Step. Similar to an OPD setting, volunteers acted as patients and recited their histories as teams accessed various investigations on a laptop to make a diagnosis. Scores from the semifinals were tallied, and the six finalists were declared, which marked the end of quizzing on day two.
Finals
The long-awaited finals of IQMU took place on the third morning at TMA Pai Hall 2. Dr. Sanchit Bajpai from KMC, Mangalore, was the quizmaster for the event. The six finalists went through traditional quiz rounds like Pounce and Bounce, Trivia, It’s all in a Picture (a visual connect round), and Rapid Fire, followed by a highly innovative round called Wheel of Fortune. Participants got to spin a large wheel to land on categories with a variable number of points. Participants got to spin a mini wheel to earn extra points in a single turn on getting a Jackpot question correct. After four intensive rounds and a nail-biting tiebreaker, the quiz finally found its three winning teams.
Valedictory Ceremony
The winners were felicitated in a formal Valedictory ceremony. The team comprising participants from BJ Medical College, Ahmedabad, and Midnapore Medical College were the champions and were commended highly on the rigor and enthusiasm in the events. The teams from Madras Medical College and Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute won second and third places, respectively.
All participants appreciated the Scientific team’s efforts in making and conducting the quiz and were grateful to the entire IQMU committee for a memorable time.
Written by Ishita Sharma, Namitha Muktineni, and Oishik Roy for MTTN
Edited by: Aarthika Srinivasan for MTTN
Featured Image and Images by: Ayush Rana, Aromal Sunil, Bhavye Bhatia, Samir Gulati for MTTN
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.