Emergency Medicine, the Emerging Specialty: Leading Light on the entrance to the Health Care Pathway

Aslesha Vijaay Sheth

Consultant and Clinical Lead, Department of Emergency Medicine, Kauvery Hospital, Chennai, India

Emergency Medicine has been an emerging speciality across the world as the Leading Light on the entrance to the Healthcare pathway. It has become the public face of the hospital to the patient and his family, especially when in distress. And in recent times, it has become an integral part of a successful hospital, as “Time is Life”, and saving a life, or a limb, in time, is the ultimate goal of emergency services.

Its practitioners extend their most helpful hands to the patients and their families as they step into a hospital. The very mention of the word “;hospital” often fills patients and families with anxiety, alarm and apprehension. Yet, within minutes they entrust the lives of their loved ones in the swift and skilled hands of the Emergency Physicians who promptly initiate their healing process.

With courage, optimism and a smile, we emergency physicians welcome every patient to the ED.

Within the next few moments of arrival in the ED, the ED Physicians would inquire, examine, investigate, evaluate and stabilize using standard protocols. Most of the situations demand quick decisions and timely interventions that can be life-saving. A busy ED is full of action and teamwork, in perfect balance. ED physicians are always pumped with adrenaline that rushes against time to revive a critical patient.

After initial resuscitation and stabilization, the next step would be to confer with a consultant who would assume responsibility as the primary physician under whose care the patient would then be transferred for further management.

This seamless process, though it may often seem tense and frenetic, is actually a fast -paced yet intensely controlled and focussed effort conducted with scrupulous efficiency round the clock with utmost zest and enthusiasm. We address every possible threat to the health of the patient and also ensure we find the time address every concern of the family too.

The war with Covid 19 saw us transform, globally, into the Infantry of the healthcare warrior force. Though there was fear deep down inside, there was a humanitarian compulsion to serve bravely; thus we became the foot soldiers of this war, marching boldly, stridently and fearlessly, ahead of the artillery and the armoured corps.

Two years into the pandemic, Emergency Medicine Physicians of the world have become battle- hardened professionals who have seen it all- including fallen comrades.

Confronting the pandemic on the front line, bearing its full brunt, learning and acting on their feet, Emergency Medicine has scaled up and built a powerhouse of knowledge and experience that would keep the pandemics of the future at bay.

This battle ground has also spawned a new generation of intrepid young professionals, driven not only by their determination but with immense confidence in facing any hurdle with no fear. Dedicated to salvaging the patient from the jaws of a predator, which could be a grievous injury or a complex disease, we would go to any extent to achieve that goal.

It is time they tell their stories- about the battles fought, victories gained, and once in a while, about a heart – breaking loss.

I thank Dr. Venkita Suresh, Group Medical Director to have given our ED an opportunity to present a portfolio of challenges that were decisively met by us that we had recently displayed at the EMCON 2021 – A popular National Emergency Medicine Conference conducted by Society of Emergency Medicine in India (SEMI) in association with International Federation of Emergency Medicine (IFEM) held recently at Bengaluru.

The Dept of Emergency Medicine at Kauvery Hospital, Chennai is privileged to publish them in the KAUVERIAN.

We believe that the ED is a Theatre of Action where we are passionate performers, enacting the powerful drama of Emergency Medicine, with compassion, competence and confidence, to win the hearts and minds, and protect the life and limbs, of the patients who step into our arena.

Every second counts on that platform, where we practice serious medicine, with extra-ordinary care, in order to save lives.

Dr. Aslesha Vijaay Sheth

Consultant and Clinical Lead

Emergency Medicine, the Emerging Specialty: Leading Light on the entrance to the Health Care Pathway

Emergency Medicine, the Emerging Specialty: Leading Light on the entrance to the Health Care Pathway

Journals