American Heart Association Rolls Out ACLS Programme In Ahmedabad

EHM News Bureau - Mumbai

American Heart Association (AHA) has introduced its flagship programme Advance Cardiac Life Support (ACLS) in Ahmedabad from last month. Ahmedabad will become a regular International Training Organisation (ITO) site, after Hyderabad, Pune and Bangalore in the country and will conduct regular ACLS programmes through out the year. The training will benefit large number of young doctors, cardiologists, emergency room doctors and critical care specialists.

Advance Cardiac Life Support (ACLS) of AHA teaches the evidence based internationally accepted principles and protocols in cases of heart attacks, cardiac arrest, arrhythmias and other heart ailments. It has standardised the treatment of such conditions and has shown to improve the outcome following such emergencies. It is mandatory for any physician seeking residency programme in USA and other western countries.

The first day of three day course teaches BLS (Basic Life Support) principles and the next two days are dedicated to ACLS and includes lectures, hands-on training, ECG interpretation, Mega Code exercise and pre and post course test for assessment.

A contingent of ACLS instructors from US will fly to Ahmedabad next month to offer two ACLS provider and one ACLS Instructor course. They are from world-renowned Presbyterian Hospital, University of Columbia, New York.

Dr Rachel Moreski, Director of International Emergency Medicine at University of Columbia will lead the whole project. Says Dr Morski, “ In the first phase, we plan to identify a cadre of local ACLS trainers from teaching faculty from medical colleges and private hospitals invited for these courses. We hope that ACLS programme will soon be taught by Indian instructors. The training equipment, specified by AHA are being flown from USA through financial support of AmeriCares, a large charity organization involved in capacity building in Gujarat”. In Ahmedabad this programme is offered through Academy of Traumatology (India).

Says Dr Manjul Joshipura, Director, Academy of Traumatology, “The programme is a natural expansion of the educational activities of Academy of Traumatology (India) after successfully training over 3000 doctors through Trauma Life Support courses under NTMC (National Trauma Management Course).”

“This initiative will strengthen the emergency and disaster management capabilities of EMS in Ahmedabad and Gujarat in general. This is an important step towards initiating the international level training programme for medicos and paramedics in the EMS in the state,” says Dr Haren Joshi, Honorary Director of EMS Council of Ahmedabad, who is closely involved with the project.