The Jai Prakash Narayan Apex Trauma Centre of All-India Institute of Medical Sciences has got the go-ahead for a new course dealing with emergency medicine from the Medical Council of India.
It is the first step in preparing a cadre of experts dealing in emergency medicine, which is crucial in cases of serious injuries. Doctors say that the golden hour, after a major incident, is highly crucial in saving lives.
“In a bid to improve the emergency services in India, we have designed a course in MD in Emergency Medicine that will deal with saving life of patients in emergency including brain stroke, heart stroke, vaginal bleed, ENT, radiation or anything that demands immediate response,” assistant professor, Division of Emergency Medicine and Trauma, Dr Sanjiv Bhoi said.
“The need of specialisation arises as the doctor manning the emergency unit is generally a simple MBBS who is not specialised in any particular discipline. He should be skilled enough to tackle all the emergencies and not end up calling cardiologist, neurologist or orthopaedic thereby wasting the golden hour. Having skills in tackling emergency medicine will not only improve the survival rate of the patients but also result in lesser damage to the affected organ,” Dr Bhoi added.
The US has experts in emergency medicine from the past 25 years, UK and Australia have it from 15 years. The first session will start from January and any doctor can apply for it. The AIIMS has designed the course in collaboration with the University of South Florida.