The International Journal of Emergency Medicine (IJEM)
At the emergency medicine conference (EMCON 2007) held at Chennai two years ago, an emergency physician highly respected in India, Prof V. Anantharaman FRCP, FRCS (A&E) from Singapore General Hospital, presented a talk on EM research. One of his slides shown below was very relevant.

The research studies presented by various EM departments in the last few EM conferences in India give a very poor impression. Majority of papers are of no value and are done just to show numbers. Bad choices of topics, duplication of studies, unethical & unscientific ideas, poor design & methodology and unskilled presentation are some of the issues.

One of the reasons for this is that residents & emergency physicians in India cannot access the most desired journals from overseas colleges and institutes like ACEP, etc, due to their high subscription cost. Also, the faculty at most emergency medicine institutes have not taken a proactive step to ensure large flow of academic information in the form of evidence based journals.

In its current state, Indian emergency medicine in not mature enough to publish its own journal. Those who have chosen EM in India as a career path and also have an inclination towards EM research must work on high quality projects which can compete at international level.

Journals like Academic Emergency Medicine, Canadian Journal of EM, IJEM and others have promoted research papers from India by publishing their abstracts. But very few have reached full article publication and these are inaccessible to the most needy.

One of the recent developments is the International Journal of Emergency Medicine (IJEM) started by Dr. Wyatt Decker and Dr. Latha Stead, based at Mayo Clinic & University of Rochester respectively. With an editorial board consisting of emminent emergency physicians from all over the world, this journal is truly international. Most importantly it is open access, i.e. online access to all its content & articles is free of charge.

Respect and popularity of this new journal has been increasing in all countries, especially in India. Let's hope that this can guide Indian EM research in the right direction.

Links to IJEM
http://www.springerlink.com/content/120998
Description, Editorial Board & Submission

Is your emergency department ready to manage suspected cases of swine flu?
Is your staff trained to detect these cases and treat them without exposing themselves to the risk?

Read the Swine Flu Clinical Management Protocols and Infection Control Guidelines from the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Govt of India

http://mohfw.nic.in
.

Advanced Trauma Life Support® (ATLS®) Courses in India

India's first official ATLS® courses will be conducted at Jai Prakash Narayan Apex Trauma Centre, AIIMS , New Delhi.
Details are available at this website www.atls.in ATLS is an initiative of the American College of Surgeons (www.facs.org)
This course teaches a systematic, concise and standardized approach towards dealing with a trauma patient.
All emergency physicians & trauma surgeons are expected to apply the ATLS concept during the management of every trauma patient.

ATLS based trauma programs are not a new thing for emergency medicine in our country.
Several advanced trauma management programs have been training candidates regularly for more than a decade now.
EMTC (Early Management of Trauma Course, Christian Medical College, Vellore) www.emtcvellore.net
NTMC (National Trauma Management Course, Academy of Traumatology, Gujarat) www.indiatrauma.org

Apart from these, ITLS (International Trauma Life Support) courses which train prehospital care
personnel in trauma management have also been around since several years now at
Symbiosis Institute of Health Sciences, Pune,
Indian Institute of Emergency Medical Services, Kottayam and
Ramaiah Medical College, Bangalore
ITLS Access which trains candidates on extrication techniques and removal of victims from vehicles & wreakage is also conducted at Symbiosis, Pune

See ITLS Course Locations in India on the ITLS website

The cost of the official ATLS course at Rs:20000/- per candidate (in contrast to others which are at 2000/- per candidate) will seriously limit
the accessibilty of this critical training to the doctors who need it the most.
How this course makes a difference to the trauma management in the country remains to be seen.

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Greetings from EmergencyMedicine.in - The first and only web portal for emergency medicine in India.
We started in May 2006 and are continuing on our quest to provide all EM related information.

As we are all taking the specialty of emergency medicine into its new rapid phase of expansion, the
demand by newcomers for authentic information is at its peak.

www.emergencymedicine.in now recieves more than 12000 visitors per month! Our mailbox is now recieving
about a 100 enquiries a month about all aspects of EM. We get enquiries for locations of training
programs, departments, Heads, EM physicians, mentors, examinations, overseas observerships,
international visitors and workshops. We also are now giving career advice to fresh graduates regularly
and directing them to relevant institutes based on their preferences.

In an effort to standardise the information we have about emergency departments in India, we have created
an online form which needs to be submitted, in order to be listed on our website. This information will be
displayed and used to guide students, residents, observers and potential training candidates to your dept.

The list of emergency departments in India can be reached by clicking on the link at the top left corner of this page.

We will process your submitted information and update our site pages accordingly.
Please include any information specific to your dept that you want us to know.

We hope that this effort will ensure the availability of authentic information to all our visitors.

To submit information, request for an emergency department survey form by sending us an email at emergencymedicine.in@gmail.com


- Administrator

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WORLD HEALTH DAY 2009
Save lives. Make hospitals safe in emergencies.



World Health Day 2009 focuses on the safety of health facilities and the readiness of health workers who treat those affected by emergencies.
Health centres and staff are critical lifelines for vulnerable people in disasters - treating injuries, preventing illnesses and caring for people's health needs.
READ MORE on the WHO website
.