New Delhi, August 03: In a move that might streamline the patient load in the Emergency Department, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) will soon be starting a new department for emergency medicine.
According to rough estimates, the Emergency Department at the AIIMS gets around 500 cases a day. The authorities at the institute are hopeful of welcoming the first batch of students in January 2010.
The proposal for the new department has already been approved by the academic committee and courses for the post-graduate students of MD-EM are now being designed.
Specialisation in the subject will help train students who have knowledge of several branches of medicine like surgery, medicine, orthopaedics, among others, to deal with emergency cases.
“This will help in meeting the scarcity of skilled workforce in emergency medicine. The course is being designed and we have four seats for post-graduate students in this course,” said Sailesh Yadav, Deputy Director, Administration, AIIMS.
The proposal is currently with the standing finance committee for approval, he added.
The institute has collaborated with the University of South Florida, Tampa, to design a special course for Trauma and Emergency Medicine, which is new in India.
“We have been working with them for over five years to help design a course that specifically suits developing nations,” said a senior professor working on the project.
The drafting of a curriculum in Emergency Medicine for post-graduate students and compulsory rotatory posting in Emergency Medicine during one-year internship after MBBS were also proposed to the Academic Council.
If all goes well, the institute will have international exchange programmes in Emergency Medicine with the University of South Florida, for both students and the faculty. Apart from MD-Emergency Medicine, super-specialisation in traumatology and critical care medicine are other proposals put to the academic committee.
–Agencies