Anaesthesia Pain and Critical Care Medicine (CURRENT 2016) Refresher Course in Kathmandu

Health Exchange Nepal (UK) organised a refresher course in Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital (TUTH) on 26 August 2016 in Kathmandu, Nepal.

Dr Shambhu Acharya took the responsibility of forming an international faculty and the rest of the faculty members were from TUTH for this meeting. It was an opportunity as well as a challenge to find the experts in the relevant fields who were willing to go to Nepal during a holiday season on a voluntary basis.

Three consultant anaesthetists from Aintree (Dr Shambhu Acharya, Dr Raj Nagaraja and Dr Shetty) and Dr Jagadish Agrawal from Wirral Hospitals and one paediatrician Dr Sujay from United Arab Emirates kindly agreed to be the faculty members to go to Nepal.

A range of topics were included in the course. The international faculty covered the following topics:

• Anaphylaxis: Dr Shambhu Acharya
• Complications of regional anaesthesia: Dr Ravish Shetty
• Pregnancy induced hypertension: Dr Jagadish Agrawal
• Neonatal resuscitation: Dr N Sujay
• Critical appraisal of scientific papers: Dr Raj Nagaraja
• Fluid management in trauma patients: Dr Raj Nagaraja

There were many challenges for our faculty as Nepal lacks many resources and some drugs are not available there and some alternatives were to be found that could be used in Nepal. 

Photo (Left to Right):
Dr Gentle Shrestha, Dr Diptesh Aryal (Co-ordinator for the course in Nepal), Dr Nagaraja, Prof Bimal Kumar Sinha (Acting Dean, Institute of Medicine), Dr Acharya, Prof Marhatta (HoD of Anaesthesia, TUTH), Dr Anil Shrestha

Airway Management Workshop, BPKIHS, 23rd August 2016

The Airway Management Workshop was organized by the Department of Anaesthesiology and Critical Care, BPKIHS in collaboration with Health Exchange Nepal, UK on 23rd August 2016.

The workshop was organized with the objectives to prepare and apply principles of advanced airway management including the use of latest airway devices. The inaugural ceremony started at 8:30 am.  The Vice Chancellor, Hospital Director, Registrar, Dean Academics/ Examinations, Deputy Director, Dr. Shambhu Acharya as a resource person were invited in the ceremony. The Vice chancellor appreciated the workshop and also promised to help the department in the future for any academic endeavor. Dr. Shambhu Acharya who also represented Health Exchange Nepal, UK, promised to continue helping the department as before. 

A total of 44 doctors attended the workshop. Thirty six attended the workshop as participants. Twenty-four participants were from BPKIHS while twelve participants were from different hospitals of the Eastern Nepal including Nobel Medical College, Birat Medical College and from different hospitals from Birtamod. Eight faculties attended the workshop as resource persons. 

The 4 topics included in the workshop were
•    Airway equipments and management of difficult airway
•    Awake intubation techniques
•    Fiberoptic intubation
•    Surgical Airway

The participants both from the BPKIHS and from outside BPKIHS were very much pleased to have hands-on training using various equipment that they had only read on their books. They requested the organizers for organizing similar training in the future also.

Prof Balkrishna Bhattarai
Head of Department of Anaesthesiology, BPKIHS, Dharan

Child Protection: Recognition and Response Training for Clinicians

A course provided by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, Advanced Life Support Group & the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.

Child Abuse and Neglect has been identified as a major issue globally affecting large numbers of children both in upper and lower income countries.

Under Article 19 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, Governments must do all they can to ensure that children are protected from all forms of violence, abuse, neglect and mistreatment by their parents or anyone else who looks after them.

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From 2nd - 5th May 2016, a total of 34 doctors and nurses who work with children and families attended a series of one day workshops at Kanti Children’s Hospital in Kathmandu provided by a visiting faculty from the UK.

The interactive training included small group teaching was extremely well attended with a variety of local doctors and nurses taking part.

The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, Advanced Life Support Group (ALSG) & the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children aim to provide follow-up workshops later this year led by local trainers with support from ALSG UK.

Many thanks to the UK Faculty og Dr Kate Denning, Sheila Moore, Dr Jean Price, Dr Deepak Upadhyay, Dr Neela Shabde, and Dr Chris Hobbs, and for the local support provided by Professor Dr Binod Man Shrestha, Head of Department and Professor Dr Chandeshwar Mahaseth, Medical Director at Kanti Children’s Hospital.

Guest Blog: Dr Andreas Brodbeck

Dr Andreas Brodbeck, Consultant in Anaesthesia, Intensive Care and Pain Medicine at James Paget University Hospital visited Nepal twice in 2015. He shares his story:

"One week after the April 2015 earthquake, a team of four doctors from James Paget University Hospital arrived in Kathmandu. We had been sent to provide medical help to Kirtipur Hospital which had dedicated its theatres for the overwhelming need for orthopaedic surgery.

Not knowing exactly where and how our team would be working, I had the opportunity to take an ultrasound (US) machine to perform regional nerve blocks, which proved to be a very helpful technique for the patients with upper and lower limb injuries.

The hospital’s anaesthetic team - already well trained in regional anaesthesia – learned how to work the ultrasound very quickly. Sadly I had to return back to the UK with the ultrasound scanner, but we agreed that I should return to provide a US guided regional anaesthesia workshop later in the year.

One of my Nepalese colleagues at James Paget University Hospital, Dr Kamal Aryal, had run a successful laparoscopic surgery course in Nepal for many years, supported by Health Exchange Nepal (HExN), and this organisation was quickly prepared to support my ultrasound workshop.  HExN even funded a new ultrasound machine which we were able to present to the Kirtipur Hospital anaesthetic team when I returned to run the workshop in December 2015.

The one day workshop was successful and the feedback from attendees was excellent. We want to consider a two-day course in the future that would include clinical work and exposure in theatres with patients."