Table 4: Major themes regarding the foundation course emerging from open-ended responses of students’ and quotes.

Themes	Students’ Quotes
Confidence Building	1.” The most beautiful thing was that I overcome my own fear not fully but I did. I faced 200 students watching at me and I said what I learnt and what I felt in sessions. So, it was very good experience.” 2. “It was a great opportunity to express ourselves in front of all during foundation program.” 3. “I was able to gain confidence on myself. I began to love myself. I face my fears, one of which was speaking on stage. I participated in activities in which I thought I was never capable of. I made very good friends through the way of one month. It was amazing.”
Skill Acquisition	1. “We learnt very essential & basic skills from this foundation course. It was well organized. I learnt to develop a good personality, leadership and professionalism which is very important in the career of a doctor. It will be very much useful for us in our future. I learnt how to interact with my peers, teachers, patients and with other people. It will improve my communication skill also. 2. “We were able to enhance our knowledge on topics: viz Basic Life Support (BLS), Biomedical Waste Management (BMW), Immunization, Documentation, etc’.
Enhanced communication skills	1.“We learnt to communicate with people in society because of foundation program.” 2. “It will improve my communication skill also’.
Field/Community Visits	1.“Field visits made our perspective clearer about practicing as doctor, different type of patients and how to deal with them, perception of people about a doctor and we also realized our responsibility.” 2. “It was really helpful to visit community health center which increased our communication ability.” 3. “Hospital visits, urban healthcare center visits were undoubtedly the best part of the program. They allowed us to engage freely and obtain hands on experience about out health care system.”
Suggestions	1. “I suggest the future students to attend all the sessions of foundation program as it helps a lot.” 2. ‘Some lectures were found to be long and boring; they can be made more specific and precise”. 3. “There is need to strengthen infrastructure, outdoor sports and audio-visual aids.”
Overall support	One of the students put it like this; “I am very fortunate to attend this program of foundation course. I would like to thank every faculty who took session. It was really helpful to increase my confidence, knowledge, belief to my profession, mental abilities. It was really helpful to visit community health center which increased our communication ability. However, some of the technical problem caused inconvenience during sessions and sometimes the required things were not available.”