No college offers emergency medicine
Sumitra Deb Roy TNN

Mumbai: Monday’s Mumbai-Pune Expressway accidetn has put focus back on the need for trained manpower to save lives in the crucial hours following such incidents.

The Medical Council of India (MCI) in 2009, approved a course on specialization in emergency medicine and came out with the final framework in 2010. However, at present, no medical college in the state—public or private-—offers the course.

According to director of Life Supporters Institute of Health Science Paresh Navalkar, "This course will train a doctor in handling all kinds of emergencies and trauma. There are hardly any courses to train doctors to take a cohesive look at the nature of injuries."

TOI has learnt that the Directorate of Medical Education and Research has already sent a proposal to the state seeking an approval to start the two-year MD course in emergency medicine.

“The proposal is pending with the state. We propose to start the course in all 14 medical colleges. Each college will offer two seats,” said Pravin Shingare, joint director of DMER.

The private-run D Y Patil medical college at Pimpri in Pune, however, has already got a go ahead from the MCI to begin the course from the current academic year. Dean Amarjeet Singh confirmed the college’s plans to start it soon.

Navalkar said, in a country where an accident claims a life every two minutes, the government should show urgency in starting such courses. "Most of the emergency rooms are manned by MBBS doctors, who may not be adequately trained to handle critical cases. When the world is moving from golden hour to platinum ten minutes, we are struggling to handle accidents," he said.

Meanwhile, colleges, at their individual levels, are training a handful doctors. The Sion hospital has been running a successful fellowship programme, where two students graduate every year. But, head of surgery Meena Kumar says more courses have to be designed. Society of Emergency Medicine will also start a one-year fellowship course at PD Hinduja Hospital, where 10 students would be trained per year.