A scenario-based, hands-on training programme to equip emergency care physicians to more effectively deal with a broad spectrum of medical exigencies is being held at the Aarupadai Veedu Medical College (AVMC) and Hospital.
Organised under the JeevaRaksha Comprehensive-Emergency Care and Life Support (C-ECLS) initiative, the five-day training of trainers programme involves common emergency care modules with focus on hands-on training. The sessions cover cardiac and respiratory emergencies, trauma, burns, poisoning, obstetric, paediatric emergencies and neonatal resuscitation.
The JeevaRaksha C-ECLS programme, conceived by Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement, is accredited by Rajiv Gandhi University of Health sciences (RGUHS), Karnataka with support from the Division of Emergency Medicine, University of Utah, US.
Rakesh Sehgal, Dean, AVMC inaugurated the programme with a batch of 32 instructors undergoing training in ECLS modules.
According to Mahalakshmi VN, AVMC Dean (Health Professions’ Education), the training programme was conceived against the backdrop of unintentional injuries or trauma, cardiovascular, respiratory, obstetric events and poisoning accounting for over 50% of the deaths in India. Most of these occur far away from the tertiary care hospitals. Doctors working in private clinics, Primary Health Centres and small private hospitals are usually the first responders in case of these emergencies.
Though legislations like the ‘Good Samaritan Law’ and outreach services like ‘Dial 108’ ambulance services have improved, immediate attention and access to emergency healthcare, poor triage systems for the incoming patients and inadequate/inappropriate care provided continue to jeopardise the lives of these patients resulting in high mortality, morbidity and economic costs, often resulting in public outrage against health workers.
Proper emergency medical care during the ‘platinum minutes’ in the ‘out of hospital environment’ and ‘golden hour’ (the first hour of an emergency) during ambulance transfer and in emergency departments, can make the difference between life and death, and between full recovery and severe disability, the AVMC said.
The initiative also ties in with with the National Medical Commission (NMC) mandate that all medical graduates are trained in emergency medical care to serve as primary care physicians and ‘Physicians of First Contact’.
The AVMC, which signed a MoU with the JeevaRaksha Trust in 2022, is the first Medical college in the Tamil Nadu and Puducherry region to initiate the ECLS training programme for the interns and postgraduate students, Dr. Mahalakshmi said.
The programme is led by Ram Nair, CEO of JeevaRaksha Trust and a team of 11 facilitators from across the globe.
