A hands-on experience in addition to insights into advanced endoscopic therapeutic procedures was offered at the two-day international workshop, ‘Endocon 2011' that concluded at the Dr. G. Viswanathan Speciality Hospitals on Sunday. The event incorporated a live workshop where endoscopic experts from South India performed various procedures.
The workshop and hands- on-course was aimed at introducing endoscopy for diagnostic and therapeutic procedures to physicians, surgeons and post graduate students, said K.Govindaraj, course director and Managing Director of the hospital. As endoscopy is generally not part of the basic curriculum, doctors even at the post graduate level do not get a working knowledge of operating an endoscope, Dr.Govindaraj, told The Hindu . In endoscopic procedures, unlike laparoscopy, a device is inserted through a natural opening in the body to examine internal organs.
The hands-on course conducted in two levels introduced basic diagnostic procedures to novices, hitherto unfamiliar with using an endoscope. The second level targeting physicians with a fundamental knowledge, had them practising therapeutic procedures like banding for varicose veins and retrieval of ingested foreign particles.
Totally, 17 therapeutic procedures performed by endoscopists from Chennai, Coimbatore, Mysore and Hyderabad at the G. Viswanathan Specialty Hospital were viewed live by 200 delegates at a city hotel. Double balloon enterscopy that allows visualisation of the small intestine and endoscopic ultrasonagram procedures were executed.
Delivering the keynote address, K.V. Rao, Director, Asian Institute of Gastroenterology discussed the future of endoscopy. He said advanced treatment procedures through endoscopy would be possible soon using nano robots. V.G. Mohan Prasad, course co-director and G. Dharmarajan, organizing secretary spoke. International faculty included Murugan Periasamy from Malaysia and Amal Priyantha from Sri Lanka.
