ART CENTER
BKL Walawalkar Medial College Dervan gets Anti-retroviral therapy or ART Center for HIV/AIDS patients. The people living with HIV/AIDS in Hills remote, rural catchment area had long pending demand for a ART center which provides Antiretroviral therapy (ART) which prolongs and improve HIV/AIDS patients’ lives, and potentially reduce the risk that they will infect others.
BKL Walawalkar Medial College Dervan has fulfilled the felt need of the local community by successfully setting up Anti-retroviral therapy centre would serve for thousands of PLHIV living in its remote, rural catchment area.
On 5th January, the Antiretroviral therapy centre was inaugurated by Honorable chief guest Dr. Sanghmitra Phule-Gawde, The Civil Surgeon, District Ratnagiri, in presence of our Honorable patron & chief trustee Shri Ashok Joshi alias Kaka Maharaj, Honorable Medical Director Dr. Suvarna Patil Madam, Hon guest Mr. Sachin Patil, District Programme Officer HIV/AIDS control Unit Ratnagiri, Hon. Dr. Vijay Dombale Sir, Principle, BKL Walawalkar Medical College & other honorable faculties in Hospital & Medical college.
“We left no stones unturned to ensure that we establish the ART Centre quickly. We got our staff trained at ART center Ratnagiri; made several makeshift arrangements to satisfy the minimum requirements to run ART Centre and made sure that our ART Centre possesses the all mandatory requirements as per national AIDS Control societies recommended norms”, informed Dr. Suvarna Patil , Medical Director, BKL Walawalkar rural Medical college & Hospital Dervan.
“We ensure that our ART Center performs to its optimal efficiency to serve PLHIV in remote & rural area of our district, As our hospital & college strives to bring affordable & quality health through different Health services in district & in future ART Centre will be another important milestone of institutes Social & health vision.” she added.
“We have established ART center under the mentorship of District AIDS Prevention and Control unit Ratnagiri, through which proposal was sent to Maharashtra aids control society which finally got approval from National AIDS control society. We shall receive required antiretroviral drugs, consumables & other support from MSACS as Public private partnership guidelines,” said Dr Prasanna Nakate, (Professor, Department of Microbiology, BKLWRMC)
Ensuring universal access to ART and care and support as per national guidelines is one of the key objectives of NACP-IV. Timely initiation of treatment along with uninterrupted supply of ARV drugs are the basic necessities for optimal treatment outcome. Adequate treatment facilities for treatment of OIs including TB treatment under RNTCP and need for provision of second line & alternative first line ART was necessary to maintain continuum of care, ART Center ,BKLWRMC Dervan is first PPP model ART centre was approved by NACO in this Konkan region. This newly established ART centre along with integrated counseling & testing center will serve as a “one-stop centre for counseling, detection and treatment of HIV & fulfill requirements of PLHIV living in this remote ,rural area ” Said by chief guest Dr Sanghmitra Phule-Gawde, Civil Surgeon ,District Ratnagiri
On the auspicious occasion of opening ceremony Integrated counseling testing center in institute got award by the hand of hon. Chief guest Dr. Sanghmitra Phule-Gawade Madam for their outstanding work in last year in prevention of mother to child transmission. ICTC staff Mrs. Priyanka Gitte, Counselor & Mr. Shashikant Dafale, Lab Technician were received certificate of appreciation for their from Maharashtra AIDS control Society.
Virology Research & Diagnostic Laboratory (VRDL) & RT-PCR Lab
Our new ‘Virology Research & Diagnostic Laboratory’ inaugurated at the hands of Dr. Shripad Banavali (Director of Academics, Tata Memorial Centre) on September 18th, 2020 provides all necessary equipment for research and next-generation advanced technology to diagnose faster and more accurately in the Molecular Laboratory.
This advanced technology will help to diagnose and prevent infections by viruses like COVID19 Dengue, Hepatitis A.B.C.D., SARC,H1N1,HIV, HPV, EPSTIn Barr virus, Ebola, MERS, ZIKA, Malaria, cervical cancer and many other communicable diseases. By knowing the viral load through the RT-PCR test, the treatment of these deadly diseases will be made easier. The laboratory will be a boon to Konkan and a benchmark in diagnostics for Molecular and viral lab.
The mechanism in the lab will encourage research activities on genotyping, cloning, mutation detection for hereditary diseases, microarray, cancer biomarkers, DNA methylation under the guidance of institute’s Scientific Advisory Committee member and well-known scientist Dr. Rita Mulherkar.
In a broader view of imparting training and education in Molecular biology & virology, Dr. M.G. Deo Molecular Laboratory has been established in B.K.L. Walawalkar Rural Medical College. The training in Genetics, DNA extraction and PCR is imparted to young aspirant budding medicos, students in this well equipped molecular laboratory.
The laboratory has been established as per ICMR guidelines and accredited by National Accreditation Board for Testing & Calibration Laboratories (NABL), a Constituent Board of Quality Council of India.
The laboratory is well equipped with advanced equipment with cutting-edge technology such as Real Time PCR machine, Biosafety cabinets class IIA2, -80°C deep freezer, -20°C deep freezer, Cold centrifuge etc. The Roche Company’s RT PCR Machine ‘The LightCycler® 96’is fully automated. Results are specific, generated automatically as compared to other company’s machines (where graphs are analyzed and results have to be interpreted manually) and with no false positivity in it.
In broader view of imparting training and education in Molecular biology & virology, Dr. M.G. Deo Molecular Laboratory has been established in B.K.L. Walawalkar Rural Medical College. The training in Genetics, DNA extraction and PCR is imparted to young aspirant budding medicos, students in this well equipped molecular laboratory.
The mechanism in the lab is also a supplement to research activities. In this lab the researches on all diseases like genotyping, cloning, mutation detection for hereditary diseases, microarray, cancer biomarkers, DNA methylation will be done under the guidance of institute’s Scientific Advisory Committee member and well known Scientist Dr. Rita Mulherkar.
DNA Extraction -Programme for Basic Molecular Biology workshop (8th -9th August 2020)
1. CME for General Practitioners
B.K.L. Walawalkar Rural Medical College is accredited CME provider to all medical professionals in this Konkan region to provide educational activities and ensure continuous quality improvement in medical education in rural area.
This January 26, 2020, we organized ‘Multidisciplinary CME’ at B.K.L. Walawalkar Rural Medical College.
Topic Included: Advances in Gen. Surgery & Urosurgery, Robotic Colorectal Surgery, Management of common Surgeries and orthopedics problems, Human factors in Medicine.
Guest Speakers – Dr. Johnathan Loughead, Ortho Surgeon, Dr. Shlok Balupuri, General Surgeon, Dr. Sanjay Deshpande, Anaesthetist, Dr. Sanjiv Patankar, General Surgeon
2. Anaesthesia Workshop
Department of Anesthesia, Critical Care & Pain management department conducted workshop on ‘Regional Anesthesia made easy’ (CME & Ultrasound guided workshop)
On 26th January 2020, the week started with Regional anaesthesia workshop for which we had a fortune to learn from the expert faculty from UK and Pune which consisted of Dr. Sarang Puranik Anaesthesia and Pain physician UK, Dr. Vinayak Desurkar Consultant anaesthetist, Deenanath Mangeshkar Hospital Pune, Dr. Amit Dikshit Consultant Reigonal anaesthetist (AORA course co-ordinator) Ruby hall hospital Pune, Dr. Kashinath Jadhav Consultant anaesthetist B.K.L.W Hopsital Dervan.
The course added Upper limb blocks, Lower limb blocks, trunkal blocks and new interfascial blocks such as PECS 1 &2, Serratus anterior plane block in our armamentarium and made Ultrasound guided regional anaesthesia easy for us.
3. Acute Illness Management
On occasion of UK camp from 26th January 2020 till 31st January 2020 anaesthesia department organized various academic programs.
From 27th January 2020 till 31st January 2020 our anaesthesia and UK team of Dr Sanjay Deshpande, Dr Peter Taysum, Dr Madeline Storey, Derek Johnson, Iain Inglis, Alisa Dunphy and Clare Flethcher conducted a fun and interactive educational workshop “Acute Illness Management” which enlightened nearly 150 budding students of various specialities such as MBBS, Nursing, Paramedical and Operating room technicians. All thoroughly enjoyed the course and learnt Basic Life Support on manikins. The feedback we received for the course was ‘Cool way to teach” and “best day of my medical life so far”.
4. Musculo-Skeletal MRI & USG – CME & Workshop
The Workshop was held on January 27, 2020 on USG MSK for a comprehensive review and update of the practical aspects of ‘Musculoskeletal MRI’. The well known experts led by Dr. Richard Cooper, Consulting Radiologist, UK, disseminated current and future trends in Musculoskeletal MRI & USG.
Dr. Richard Cooper has previously been the Training Programme Director for the Newcastle Training Scheme, and the Head of the Northern School of Radiology. He has trained many registrars in Radiology in MSK MRI, ultrasound, as well as sonographers, podiatrists, physiotherapists
5. Basic Skill Course
The objectives of this course were to instill core surgical skills of tying knots securely and proper suturing. This course was aimed at participation by medical students. The original 2 days course needed to be extended to 4 days from 27th January to 30th January 2020 due to overwhelming demand!
When Dr. Sanjiv Patankar from the Dept. of Surgery at BKLWR Medical College designed this course, one of the major goals was to enable a maximum number of medical students enrolled at our institute to benefit from a structured curriculum and get plenty of hands-on practice.
Our expectations were more than fulfilled as 20% of the enrolled medical students (all five years combined) successfully completed this training.
Dr. Shlok Balupuri from the UK team provided very engaging and sage advice to the participatants. Dr. Patankar and Dr. Balupuri, two very experienced faculty members patiently demonstrated the techniques and made sure that each student succeeded in learning these tasks.
A very well-equipped Skills Lab of international standards has been built at BKL Walawalkar Hospital and Research center at Derwan and is effectively organizing various training programs associated with the international universities and colleges in future. Dr. Patankar conceived an idea to construct a “Suturing Practice Board” using locally sourced materials and one that would be affordable and allow extensive practice sessions. This suture practice board was introduced at this workshop and it was a notable success!
6. Emergency Management/ Basic Life Support
In collaboration with UK medical team and BKL Walawalkar Hospital, Sawarde a two day workshop was organized at SVJCT Samarth Nursing College. Various sections were conducted on clinical practice for nursing students. The UK Team members were Mrs. Eleanor Freeman, Nursing Staff, Mrs. Alisa Dunphy, Sister, Mrs. Maria Pinho, Senior Sister and Mr. John Wall, Senior Biomedical Engineer.
The core topic of the workshop was emergency management and advanced procedure in critical care.
The UK team during their lecture provided education regarding effective communication skills and its importance for nurses while interacting with the patients
A demonstration of Basic Life support was conducted in Skill lab for Basic B.Sc. students. The students were also involved in mock demonstrations of aseptic techniques, hand washing, gowning and gloving techniques.
The two-day workshop helped the students as well as the faculty of nursing to update their knowledge regarding the current technique of nursing practice. Total 100 students from various nursing courses i.e. ANM, GNM, P.B.B.Sc. and B.Sc. Nursing and students of various Paramedical Courses and Teaching faculty participated in this workshop.
7. Biomedical Technology Workshop
Biomedical workshop entitled “Role of Clinical Engineers in Quality Assurance & Safety of Medical Equipment” was organized on 27th January 2020 By John Wall, Biomedical Engineer, NHS, United Kingdom and Niranjan Khambete, Biomedical Engineer, Deenanath Mangeshkar Hospital, Pune
The aim of this workshop was to teach the correct basic techniques to handle equipments and its safety. Also the techniques to improve quality measures were discussed with students of paramedical course- Biomedical instrumentation.
The programme was coordinated by Neha Deshpande, Ph.D., Associate Professor from Pune.
