Paediatrics

The mission of the Department of Pediatrics is to protect, promote, support and restore the health of children and adolescents.

SERVICES

The Department of Pediatrics caters to all children- well and sick. It has a general OPD with specialty clinics viz. well baby, cardiology, neurology, nephrology, hematology, and high risk neonatal follow-up clinics to cater the respective subgroups of children with special needs. The Department has faculty trained in Cardiology, nutrition and adolescent health. A 60 bedded ward has a Diarrhoea Treatment and Training Unit, a 24 bedded Neonatal ICU, a 10 bedded inborn NICU and a 12 bedded pediatric ICU with six ventilators and a formally trained pediatric intensivist.

EDUCATION

A regular and rigorous teaching program forms the backbone of the undergraduate and postgraduate training at the department. For the last 22 years, the Department has been conducting basic neonatal care and neonatal resuscitation training workshops for undergraduates, postgraduates and nurses. The innovations used include regular use of audiovisual aids, microteaching, small group tutorials and demonstrations for the final year students and orientation program for the freshers. Practical demonstrations are given in skills lab where hands on training of CPR, intubation etc. is provided to students on manikins. Learning is stimulated through fun activities and competitions like undergraduate and postgraduate quizzes, symposia during breastfeeding week and use of videos and role plays for IMNCI and IYCF training. All residents are trained in Neonatal and Pediatric Advanced Life Support. All faculty is trained in teaching and learning technology. Faculty members are recognized by IAP & NNF as national resource faculty for various training programs, workshops and courses like PALS, NALS, BLS, Golden Hour Emergency Management, NSSK, Vaccinology etc. 

The Directorate of Health Services, Maharashtra Govt. recognized the training excellence by selecting the Department as the only centre in Vidarbha and one of the only three nodal centres in the whole state for training of health care personnel from various government facilities for “Facility Based Newborn Care”. It also carries out a “Medical Officers Certificate Programme” of 6 months duration. The Department also runs the IGNOU study center for PG Diploma and MSc courses in Counseling and Family Therapy. The department has recently started an IAP accredited CPR training centre for training of health care professionals from MGIMS and the general public from surrounding areas in basic life support and for capacity building of health care professionals as trainers of basic life support.

Research

The departmental faculty not only includes senior academicians who are very well known at the national level but also young and dynamic academicians and super-specialists who are already a national resource faculty for many prestigious courses, are editorial board members or reviewers for many international journals, have received various awards and fellowships, have been invited as guest speakers on various occasions and have a keen interest and have received formal/informal training in much wider areas like medical education technology, epidemiology, statistics, research methods, biomedical ethics etc. The Department has been involved with various multicentric studies and many short term ICMR studies.