More seats in the future for PG vascular surgery

Updated on: Thursday, August 12, 2010

More seats in the futureScope for acquiring more PG Medical seats are on the rise with just meager number of vascular surgeons presently in India.

While speaking to Dr N Sekar of Apollo Hospital, who is also the president of Vascular Society of India revealed an alarming statistics that with hand few vascular surgeons in India about 80,000 individuals are losing their limbs due to diabetes and accidents.

As a surgeon trained to perform surgery on blood vessels, he knows that at least 80% of these people could have walked, if specialists like him had attended to them. But, that cannot happen until there are adequate specialists like him in the country.

Since the establishment of first department of vascular surgery in 1978, India has less than 100 vascular surgeons. Saddest part is that states like Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Manipur do not have any vascular surgeons at all.

Only last year, the number of seats for post-graduate degree in vascular surgery in the country was raised from four to eight in medical colleges. Including diploma holders, the country produces only 16 vascular surgeons yearly. This, experts feel, should be trebled in two years.

Dr Sekar told, "At present, there are only seven training centers for vascular surgery, training 12 students every year. We want them to double the number of seats in a year and increase it by at least three times by 2012".

Although there are no clear statistics on amputations, it is estimated that at least one lakh people lose a limb every year. Among these, nearly, 80,000 amputations are avoidable.

The Vascular Society of India is now on a full-fledged war with the Union health ministry and at least ten state governments urging them to start new departments in vascular surgery and increase the number of seats for post-graduate degree in vascular surgery.

More seats in the future for PG vascular surgery

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