An India-born trauma surgeon, practicing in the United States, has called for creating a trauma system in the country capable of dealing with massive emergency cases and casualties like the ones in the recent Maoist attack on CRPF personnel in Dantewada in Chhattisgarh.
“The state-of-the-art trauma centres are largely an unexplored territory in India. Creating multiple levels of trauma centres is in the news but creating a robust system with air evacuation, transportation backed up with State level interconnected electronic medical records system is the basic infrastructure needed in India right now,” says Dr. Saurabh Jain, who recently took over as the Clinical Instructor of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery at the Penn State Shock Trauma Center in Pennsylvania.
Dr. Jain, who was on visit to his hometown Jaipur, talked to this Correspondent on the country's “emergency needs” in the context of its threat perception as well as its growing status as a global power. “India's new need is Counter Terrorism Trauma Surgeons,” says Dr Jain, adding that “Immediacy is critical especially when you are dealing with a chest or abdomen gunshot wound.”
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Dr. Jain, who studied medical science in Ukraine and had sub-specialty fellowship training in the areas of trauma, surgical critical care and acute care surgery, thinks that India badly needs trained personnel for terrorism related health emergency situations.
“Most people think of a trauma surgeon as one who fixes broken bones. This was true for many years but the scenario has changed fast in the last two decades,” Dr Jain notes. “Trauma, acute care surgery and surgical critical care are new to India and standard trauma delivery systems are only in a few selected metros. There are only few surgeons who deal with penetrating gunshot wounds, blast injuries and aggressive surgical critical care in shock trauma ICUs. With the current security threat in every part of the country, trauma surgeons are badly needed for effective counter terrorism response,” he says.
“What India requires is a joint military civilian collaboration trauma centre in every State with air evacuation and transportation system to interconnected facility electronic medical records system along with dedicated surgical trauma ICUs. India cannot wait for foreign direct investment in health care sector because failure of foreign investment is largely visible due to untrained and not well qualified staff,” he points out.
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A lesson learnt from most recent German bakery attack in Pune is that IEDs are weapons of choice for international terrorists. “However, four deaths occurring in ICUs in Pune weeks after the blasts raise questions about our abilities in critical care management,” Dr. Jain says.
Dr Jain recommends developing life flight aero-medical services and multi heliports in the cities for transportation of most severely injured to the shock-trauma centers.
Dr Jain, who entered Vinnitsa Medical University, Ukraine, in 1994 and later was awarded Membership of Royal College of Surgeons, Glasgow UK, and received fellowship training in Trauma and Surgical Critical Care at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Beverly Hills California says: “I had an intellectual curiosity about gunshot wounds and whether it is hundred per cent fixable if patient is transported in time to the trauma surgeon.”
He is a visiting Assistant Professor at Mahatma Gandhi Medical College, Jaipur and at Vinnitsa Medical University, Ukraine. He is also working with his medical school to organize a well structured advanced post graduation training programme in surgery.