A view of the QRSC training facility at QSTP
Qatar Robotic Surgery Centre (QRSC), one of the busiest surgical training centres in the region, is set to train almost 150 clinicians through 18 courses until end of March this year.
QRSC, a partnership between Qatar Science & Technology Park (QSTP) and Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC), organised 24 surgical courses during the last quarter of 2010.
The vast majority of the trainees are based in Qatar. QRSC has become of one of the most sought-after facilities of its kind in the region, six months after launching its first training programme.
QRSC trains surgeons, Operating Room (OR) nurses and clinicians from Qatar and elsewhere in the region in robotic surgery, laparoscopic or minimally invasive surgery and basic surgical skills.
“Two exceptional features of our partnership with HMC are the decision to offer basic training in minimally invasive surgery to every resident of HMC and the involvement of local surgeons as instructors,” QRSC manager Jan Nuyens said yesterday.
The training programmes are strongly rooted in local practice and clearly answer the needs of Qatar and the region, while upholding international standards of quality, he asserted.
Less injury, less infection risk, shorter hospital stay, shorter recovery time and less scarring are among the various benefits provided by minimally invasive surgery.
As more and more Qatar based surgeons want to acquire the skills to perform less invasive surgical procedures, the need for home-grown training courses is increasing.
The joint objective of HMC and QRSC is to further improve the quality of patient care by increasing the local availability of surgical training.
After consolidating and strengthening the local expertise, training courses will be offered to the entire region on a commercial basis.
The partnership has allowed QRSC to establish very professional training programmes by building on the expertise and skills of HMC surgeons and the Medical Education Department.
The courses are currently organised by QRSC either individual workshops or part of a larger training programme.
The largest joint initiative is the Basic Laparoscopy Programme targeted at giving all surgical residents at HMC a solid introduction to laparoscopic surgery.
This exercise is entirely built on local expertise and 15 expert surgeons from different specialties are involved as instructor or programme director.
To date, almost 50% of HMC’s surgical residents have already completed the Basic Laparoscopy Course and the remaining will participate before September 2011.
This course is the first step for the future surgeons of Qatar to start building up their skills in minimally invasive surgery. The basic programme will be followed soon by more advanced level programmes that also include animal lab training.
Another programme is aimed at training four OR nurses from the Cardiothoracic Surgery Department of HMC in robotic surgery.
The two teams of nurses went through three different sessions each and completed training by the end of December 2010.
Dr Abdulwahed al-Mulla, Cardiothoracic Surgery consultant at HMC, noted that his team and he have performed more than 20 robotic surgeries on cardiac patients in Hamad Hospital.
“The role of the OR nurses in this type of surgery should not be underestimated and the level of training of the nurses has a large influence on time-efficiency of the surgery,” he said.
On Dr al-Mulla’s specific request, QRSC has created a training programme for two nursing teams, which will reduce future OR time for robotic cases.
During the last two months QRSC has also organised several high profile workshops in collaboration with the HMC.
Florida-based Dr Vipul Patel, a globally-acclaimed robotic surgeon, conducted a urology workshop in November last year.
During the Qatar Health Conference in December, QRSC organised two laparoscopic and two robotic workshops for gynaecology surgeons.
While Dr Joseph Ng, from Singapore, led the robotic workshops, the laparoscopic workshops were entirely led by local experts.
QRSC, which seeks to become a focal point for world class expertise in surgical technologies, aims to transform Qatar into a hub for robotic surgery through an integrated approach with local stakeholders and international experts.