In a bid to create awareness about treatment of critical illness, which is a life threatening multisystem process that can result in significant morbidity or mortality, Max Super Speciality Hospital, Dehradun organised a CME (Continued Medical Education) on ‘Finer Aspects of Critical Care’ in Dehradun on Saturday.
They also organised a Workshop on ‘Basics of Mechanical Ventilation’ at its premises for the critical care fellows, anesthesiologists, nurses, respiratory therapists and emergency physicians. Mechanical Ventilation is the process of mechanically assisting or replacing spontaneous breathing in critically ill patients.
Ventilators can be found even in small hospitals but the problem arises what to do with it. Its objective was to train people with access to ventilator but not the given expertise. This knowledge helps in avoiding unnecessary delays in therapies. Through such appropriate knowledge of mechanical ventilation, patients could be stabilised at lower level hospitals and then referred to higher centres with things being under control. The workshop gave the participants a hands-on training on mechanical ventilation and educated them about the causes of respiratory failure and how to safely institute mechanical ventilation.
Dr Suneel Kumar Garg, Senior Consultant-Critical Care Medicine, Max Healthcare shared his view on critical care medicine and said “Critical care is an evolving branch. Over the last two decades, we have witnessed a sea change in the approach towards treating critically ill patients. With continuing research in critical care, a dramatic reduction in mortality and morbidity has been achieved amongst critically ill patients. On the other hand, many doctors are now educated about certain illnesses/conditions which were unknown in past like critical illness neuromyopathy, persistent vegetative state, condition requiring chronic home oxygen therapy, etc. An intensivist plays a crucial role in the ICU while managing such conditions of the patient. He/she lives the life of his patient throughout the period of dependency.
The Intensivist is in continuous contact with the patient and is in a strategic position to coordinate among various specialties and para-medical staff to bring about better outcomes. During this CME, we dwelled upon the holistic aspects of treating critically ill patients and educated people about how to care for such patients and reducing their dependency and bringing down morbidity and mortality.”