Dr Basharat Munshi talking to the medical experts during the workshop.
The Fiji National University’s (FNU) College of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences (CMNHS) held its 17th Emergency Management of Severe Trauma (EMST) and 13th Care of the Critically Ill Surgical Patient (CCrISP) courses for medical personnel.
The EMST is an Australasian adaptation of the Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS) course, while (CCrISP) is the intellectual property of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons.
FNU’s CMHNS, a 140-year-old medical institute, has produced several high-quality medical graduates and is committed to producing high-quality medical graduates in the future, as captured in the Strategic Plan 2021-2026. This also aligns with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 3 of ensuring healthy lives and promoting well-being for all people of all ages.
For the first time since its inception, a local, Dr Basharat Munshi, Assistant Professor of General Surgery and Head of the Surgery Unit at CMNHS, was appointed in charge of the EMST training.
Dr Munshi said that the course would help the doctors in Fiji do their jobs well and help them deal with trauma cases better.
“The Royal Australasian College of Surgeons owns the intellectual property for EMST, and this course is given every year to post-graduate surgical, anaesthesia, and emergency medicine trainees through a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). We currently have seven fully qualified and certified locally based instructors, thanks to gradual capacity expansion over the years,” Dr Munshi explained.
“This is the first year that the course director was a local. In prior years, Australian-based professors have always occupied this job from the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons.”
Dr Munshi said that the course had been taught for more than 40 years in 83 countries, with more than 3,380-course runs and more than 68,000 students trained.
“This year, sixteen senior post-graduate trainees in surgery, anaesthesia, and emergency medicine completed the course satisfactorily. EMST certification is prestigious, and participants who pass the course are considered competent in diagnosing and treating seriously injured trauma patients. This has resulted in better results and a higher survival rate of critically injured trauma patients worldwide,” Dr Munshi mentioned.
“Dr Abhay Choudhari was also confirmed this year as the eighth member of the faculty.”
Dr Munshi said the college had five fully trained and certified instructors in the Care of the Critically Ill Surgical Patient (CCrISP) course.
“We will have two more instructors certified at the end of this year’s CCrIP course. Dr Peter Thomas, a general surgeon in Victoria, is the current course director. With me becoming a licenced CCrISP director in 2019, we also now have the local capacity for the director post.”
“The course had 16 participants who are senior post-graduate trainees in surgery, anaesthesia, and emergency medicine who are currently enrolled. CCrISP focuses on quickly assessing and treating surgical patients who are very sick in order to reduce morbidity and death in the real world. All the participants have completed their CCrISP course successfully,”
“It provided trainees with a time-tested system for treating any critically ill patient using simple principles to generate positive outcomes, which they can use for the rest of their medical careers. We want CCrISP to have a 100 percent success rate, which will surely result in better treatment for critically ill surgical patients in Fiji.”
FNU aims to be the premier national university providing relevant higher education, technical and vocational education and training, and research and development in Fiji.