'If time is lost, the brain is lost'

Ziauddin hospital hosts symposium on emergency medicine and trauma management

KARACHI: The brain is similar to time - if time is lost, the brain is lost.

This was stated by Ziauddin Medical University Consultant Neurosurgeon Dr Inayat Ali Khan at a full-day symposium, 'Emergency Medicine and Trauma Management', hosted on Saturday by Dr Ziauddin Hospital at its Clifton campus.

Dr Ziauddin Hospital Founder Dr Aijaz Fatima inaugurated the event as the chief guest and said it was a great achievement by the institution to organise such an informative symposium that would benefit a large number of its participants from the experience of leading medical experts.

"We have a lot of experts for trauma. I hope all of you who are attending the symposium will go out and help trauma patients," she said. "Traumatic brain injury is a growing epidemic throughout the world and may be a major global burden till 2020. Even 3% delay can increase the risk of life by 30 times," she said.

While addressing a talk on 'Spinal Trauma and its management', neurosurgeon Dr Naveed Khan said that we can recover spinal injuries in the first eight hours. He said 25% of spinal injuries occur after primary injuries, adding that good hospital care is needed to recover from spinal injuries.

Dr Syed Nadir Naeem spoke on chest trauma and said that chest injuries are a big cause of breathing problems. Dr Naeem said 20% of all trauma patients sustain chest injuries.



Prof Saeed Minhas, incharge of orthopaedics and trauma at Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre and Jinnah Sindh Medical University, stated that trauma treatment is teamwork and cannot be managed without an expert team.

According to research, 50% to 80% people die because of trauma injury, said Minhas, adding that our country has some of the best surgeons and doctors, but we do not have a good system of coordination.

"From January 1, only in 13 days, we have received 49 motorcycle accident cases of girls sitting on a motorcycle wearing clothing, such as a dupattas or abayas, which can cause accidents," Minhas said.

Over 19 injury cases have been received as a result of aerial firing, he said, adding that a 10% to 25% increase in trauma cases has been found in the last two decades.



Ziauddin University Faculty of Health Sciences Dean Prof Abbas Zafar said that this field is very interesting for our students who are in the last year of their MBBS programme.

"This topic has been neglected for years and I'm sure my students will help their community in this regard after completing their studies," Zafar said.

Ziauddin University Emergency Medicine Chairperson Prof MZ Jilani, in his welcome note, said that this was the first symposium being held in Karachi on emergency medicine and it was a great platform to tell medical colleges that we have a lot of young doctors who need to be trained.