AIIMS to launch trauma management degrees

The institute has planned five seats for the three-year MS course that will focus on emergency surgical and non-surgical care for trauma patients. The MCH course,also of three years’ duration,will have three seats per year and will focus on management of trauma patients in the ICU. The first draft of the course,available with Newsline,states that a professional with this qualification will be equipped to be “the team leader of the resuscitation team in the Emergency department”.

Once the courses are approved by the academic council,they will be forwarded to the standing finance committee of the institute for their stamp. After that,the hospital’s governing council will give its final consent for the course to start.

There are no super-specialised degrees for emergency and trauma care are available in India. General surgeons as well as experts with specialisation in neurosurgery or orthopedic surgery are primarily involved in trauma care.

AIIMS plans to impart complete knowledge of trauma care to specialists by rotating select students in the trauma surgery unit,including surgical ICU for 18 months,other surgical disciplines for six months,Emergency department for two months,orthopedics for two months and Neurosurgery department for three months,besides giving them a thorough training in Radiology for the use of ultrasonography in trauma care.

Meanwhile,nearly a decade after it was envisioned and drafted,the MD in the Emergency Medicine (EM) course is still to take off in the institute. After it was meticulously drafted in consultation with the University of South Florida for five years,clearance from different bodies at the institute took about three years. Now,after having been cleared by the Standing Finance Committee,the course is finally awaiting sanction from the Union ministries of finance and health.

“We are now aiming for MD in EM to start from the January 2012 session. We were hoping to start it from July this year,but the formalities are likely to take longer,” said Dr Praveen Aggarwal,HoD of the hospital’s Emergency Medicine Department. But doctors at the trauma centre are hopeful that the courses in trauma surgery will see the light of day sooner than expected.