Aligarh: The Department of Anesthesiology of JN Medical College at the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) has extended its horizon of Anesthesia practice.

The department has conducted for the first time a hands-on-workshop in Ultrasound guided Central Venous Access, Focused Echocardiography in Emergency Life Support (FEEL) and the Nerve Blocks for Regional Anesthesia in collaboration with SONSOTIE.

The workshop was chaired by Prof. S. Bano. Dr. S. Moied Ahmad, Incharge of ICU at the JN Medical College and the coordinator of the programme said that the central venous access and the nerve blocks are usually performed on the basis of their anatomical landmark causing high incidence of complications and failure rates.

Ultrasound guided procedures have drastically reduced the incidence of complications and failure rates. It has also reduced the time taken to perform the procedure and improved patient comfort. Further, the clinicians are able to accept complicated cases.

He said that very few hospitals in India have been able to incorporate it as a protocol for patient management both due to lack of experience amongst the clinicians and logistics. However, the National Institute for Center of Excellence (NICE) has made it a guideline for insertion of central venous catheter. Since then USG guided venous access has been widely accepted internationally.

Dr. Ahmad said, "Recently, Echocardiography has been used to identify the probable causes of Asystole and Pulse-less Electrical Activity (PEA) cardiac arrest. However, I hope that in the near future, it is expected to be in the algorithm of Advanced Cardiac Life Support. This would enable to speed up the specific management and improve the prognosis of Asystole and PEA arrest."

Prof. S. Abrar Hasan, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, mentioned in his speech that learning is a continuous process and such type of workshop would definitely help the budding clinicians achieve perfection and improve quality of patient care.

Prof. Ashraf Malik, Principal and Chief Medical Superintendent at JN Medical College said that the Department of Anesthesia is a pioneer in innovative ideas and has been always playing a key role in improving the academic environment of the Medical College.

At the end of the program, certificates were distributed to the participants. The programme was attended by several teachers as well as 50 senior and junior residents of the department.