A team from the Teaching Center for Trauma, Emergency, and Mass Casualty Situations (MCS) at Rambam Health Care Campus recently traveled to India to help train local healthcare and administrative personnel.
The Institute of Medical Science at Banaras Hindu University (BHU) in Varanasi, India, hosted a three-day Indo-Israel Trauma Course & Mass Casualty Scenario (MCS) Workshop at the BHU Trauma Center from February 24–26, 2023. This event is the second of its kind in five years and is a testament to the burgeoning bilateral relationship between Israel and India.
Rambam’s Teaching Center for Trauma, Emergency, and Mass Casualty Situations (MCS) was established in 1999 with the goal of sharing Rambam’s internationally-acclaimed and accumulated knowledge with other healthcare professionals in Israel and worldwide. The teaching center team has trained over 3,500 participants from 83 nations in Israel or a host country. The syllabus places the utmost importance on the management of mass casualty situations and Rambam’s course graduates are highly-accredited.
The Rambam delegation to India included; Professor Michael Halberthal, director general and CEO; Dr. Hany Bahouth, head of the Emergency Medicine and Trauma Section director of the Division of Emergency Medicine & Trauma and the medical director of The Teaching Center for Trauma Systems, Emergency and MCS, and Mrs. Gila Hyams, Rambam’s director of nursing and the director of The Teaching Center for Trauma Systems, Emergency and MCS.
Other Israeli delegation members included Dr. Lion Poles, head of the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory at Kaplan Medical Center in Rehovot, and Guy Caspi, director of the HAZ-MAT, Exercises and Operational Training Department at Magen David Adom.
Dr. Amit Gupta from the Department of Trauma Surgery at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, and other experts from leading institutions also participated. Dr. Saurabh Singh, Director Trauma Centre & Super-specialty Hospital Institute of Medical Sciences at BHU and organizing chairman of the event, explained that all trauma-related needs and nuances were on the agenda, including the effective evacuation of injured patients, best trauma treatments, interventions, and practices. Both Gupta and Singh are Rambam course graduates and by virtue of their superior training, they are field leaders in their country.
Professor Halberthal concludes, “For more than a decade we have been sharing our knowledge and medical expertise with our colleagues in India. The Indo-Israel Trauma Course & Mass Casualty Scenario Workshop was a great success and we look forward to many more opportunities like this in the future.”