How is Christian Medical College Taking Strides to Improve Medical Health?

Christian Medical College or (CMC) is a private medical institute located in Vellore, Tamil Nadu. It is not only known to be the best medical institution but is also an internationally acclaimed medical institute.

Christian Medical College carries some very important milestones in Indian Health Care to its name. The institute established the first nursing college of the country, performed the first successful open-heart surgery of the country, performed the first kidney transplant and first bone marrow transplant in India as well.

CMC has been regularly taking long strides to improve the health care situation in the country. As in India, lack of awareness amounts to the biggest challenge to medical professionals.

So, with the objective of spreading information as well as providing hands-on experience to future doctors, this institute is doing a commendable job at both ends.

Let us take a look at some recent efforts being done by Christian Medical College, Vellore, and appreciate their remarkable efforts:

CMC takes initiatives to detect and treat Cervical Cancer

Christian Medical College has taken a brilliant initiative to detect and treat cervical cancer in women in the nearby region. In the initial years of the project, from 2007 to 2010, CMC faced a lot of difficulties as the awareness level about the method that they have adopted was zero. Also, women hesitated for the checkup as they feared of being found positive in the test.

The initiative depends upon the visual screening method of detecting the disease, which is performed by Christian Medical College’s Rural Unit for Health and Social Affairs (RUHSA). After a woman is found positive in the screening test, the confirmation is done through biopsy and then the treatment starts.

This easy and affordable method of screening is seeing high success in the area. In the past 10 years, CMC doctors have tested more than 7500 women. However, 235 women have been found positive under the test, which is a high number. Out of these 90 women are in early stages, and can definitely be cured by a consistent procedure.

Dr. Rita Isaac, Head of RUHSA, said that their goal is to provide simple and affordable treatment to women. She said that we are encouraging women to participate voluntarily in the test so that the program becomes successful and this disease can be eradicated completely from the region.

CMC performs swap kidney transplant

Performing a kidney transplant is becoming the need of the hour in medical health care. However, still, we have a limitation that without finding the perfect match, it cannot be performed.

In such a situation, swap kidney transplants are a great relief for patients, where kidney transplants can be done even if matching kidneys and blood groups are not available directly.

CMC Vellore performed a successful swap kidney transplant in July, which is a big achievement. This transplant was performed involving a man, his wife, and two girls, who were sisters.

The problem was that the man could not donate his kidney to his wife, as they had different blood groups. The similar problem was with the sisters as well. However, doctors made the overall transplant possible by transplanting the man’s kidney to the elder sister, and her kidney was later transplanted to man’s wife.

This complex operation involved 4 operation theatres running simultaneously. The doctors said that they have to do it as quickly as possible, and shorter delay leads to better results.

CMC doctors told that this is not the first such transplant performed at CMC, in fact, two such transplants have already been conducted at the hospital.

Presently, both the patients are completely fine and living a normal life, which proves the excellence of CMC doctors.

CMC becomes the lifesaver for an unborn baby

In April 2017, CMC doctors performed a surgery on an unborn baby, which was vital to keep the baby in existence.

It all started when a 37-week pregnant lady was referred to CMC Vellore. Proper scans were performed on her and it was found that the baby in her womb had a big neck mass of size about 7*8 cm. If the baby had born with such mass, he/she would not have been able to breathe after birth.

The doctors said that a baby breathes through mother inside the womb. However, after the birth, baby needs to breathe on his/her own, and such a mass wouldn’t have made it impossible.

The doctors performed an EXIT (ex utero intrapartum treatment), which involved passing a breathing tube through baby’s airway so that oxygen could be provided.

Such surgeries are often very complex, but the doctors did it very successfully. This again proves the diligence that this institute carries in its work.

CMC opens a new center for Low Vision Rehabilitation

Blindness and lack of vision due to old age and other nutritional deficiencies are a big problem in the country and CMC is rightly prepared to tackle this problem.

Department of Ophthalmology of Christian Medical College, Vellore has inaugurated a new center for low vision rehabilitation inside the premises of Shalom Family Medicine Centre of the college.

The focus of this center will be on lifestyle modifications and the activities or devices that patients can use in their daily living to stay healthy. In addition to these, this center will also help in skill training, vocational rehabilitation, and community-based rehabilitation.

CMC discusses the Dengue Problem

Dengue and other mosquito-borne diseases are a big problem in India. The lower level of public hygiene, improper cleanliness, ineffective urban management and lack of awareness are some of the reasons of why this problem is extrapolating. Dr. George Varghese made some important remarks on this problem of the country.

Speaking on the issue, Dr. Varghese said that even a small thing like a coconut left out in the rain can become the cause of this problem. By this, he targeted the problem of waterlogging, since the mosquitoes breed where water in unnecessarily logging and is not removed properly. These mosquitoes mostly bite during the day, which means that to stay safe, you have to be in properly sanitized and ventilated areas.

Talking about curing this problem, Dr. Varghese said that Antibiotics can have the reverse impact on the body as well. He said that a dengue virus has 4 serotypes (a group of micro-organisms within a virus, with own different features), and an infected person may have more than one serotypes functioning inside the body.

When one of these serotypes is tackled by antibiotics, they can lead to increase in the activity of the second serotype, and thus ultimately may not be able to cure the person completely. According to Dr. Varghese, this could be a big reason why the problem of dengue is increasing severely in India.

Being one of the best medical colleges in India, CMC Vellore is definitely taking some admirable steps towards betterment of medical health care in the country. India currently needs a lot of such steps to cater the needs of rising population.

 

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