The American College of Surgeons and its Committee on Trauma has developed the ATLS course for doctors. The course provides systemic and concise training for the early care of the injured patients. The ATLS course provides a scaffold for evaluation, treatment, education and quality assurance. The course presents doctors with knowledge and techniques that are comprehensive and easily adapted to fit the needs of the country it is practiced in. It is measureable, reproducible and a comprehensive system of trauma care.
The course of Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS) is an extremely important course for adequate trauma care and particularly so in Bangladesh. In most developed countries this is a mandatory course for doctors working in a hospital. Abbreviated as ATLS, this course of the American College of Surgeons and has been brought to Bangladesh under a tripartite agreement between American College of Surgeons, Bangladesh College of Physicians and Surgeons and the Society of Surgeons of Bangladesh.
The organization of the entire course along with setting up the infrastructure, training of Faculties and running of the courses along with all financial involvement have and shall continue to be the responsibility of Bangladesh College of Physicians & Surgeons.
Trauma management is essentially a multidisciplinary specialty care which begins from the site of accident to the ultimate tertiary level care and the hospital care begins right from the emergency room. Time is vital and the right steps in the judicious care of the severely injured person helps to save precious lives.
The Promulgation of ATLS in Bangladesh promises to open up a superior level of trauma care in this country. It is imperative that we do not stop at just the training of our doctors but proceed further to ensure that the environment to practice the care is available in all the hospitals that have to deal with trauma. With the promulgation of ATLS in Bangladesh the training of the doctors shall proceed rapidly and it is imperative that we do not stop at just the training of our doctors but proceed further to ensure that the environment to practice the care is available in all the hospitals that have to deal with trauma.
ATLS is presently being practiced in 83 countries of the world including India, Sri Lanka,Pakistan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, China, Indonesia, Myanmar, Thailand and now Bangladesh shall be the 84th country to bear the flag and shall be a member of ATLS Region XVI.
The introduction of the ATLS program is documented to bring about a significant improvement in the care of the injured and the organized trauma care promises to reduce injury mortality and shall help develop the organizational and procedural skills of our doctors. ATLS ensures that all doctors of the world working with it talk in a common language and essentially enable our doctors to come at par with the world standards of trauma management.
Bangladesh College of Physicians and Surgeons believes and strives to attain a high standard of post graduate certification and continues to dissipate a standardized and uniform skill and competence among its fellows and the post graduate fraternity of the country.
Among the courses already in force are the franchised course of Essential Obstetric Care and Neonatal Care of LSTM, Advanced Cardiac Life Support and Basic Life Support of the American Heart Association, Basic Surgical Skills and Temporal Bone Dissection while courses on Basic Laparoscopic Skills and a few others are due to be introduced this year. They contribute hugely to the quality of patient management in Bangladesh.
12 faculties from USA, Australia, India, Hong Kong, Malaysia and five faculties from Bangladesh are training 16 senior doctors who are expected to be the future trainers of the younger doctors at various levels.
