Health

Ganga Hospital in Coimbatore hosts Ganga Anaesthesia Refresher Course 2023

SimpliCity News Team · 23 Mar 2023

Coimbatore: The Ganga Anaesthesia Refresher Course 2023 (GARC 2023) was conducted at the Ganga Hospital from March 16-19. A large number of anesthesiologists from various countries like the UK, USA, Malaysia and Zimbabwe participated.

Various foreign delegates from different countries shared their knowledge and experience.

Talking to Simplicity, Dr. Arvind Palanisamy, Associate Professor of Anesthesiology, Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, USA Division, Chief for Obstetric Anesthesiology, Barnes Jewish Hospital who was the main speaker at the event shared a broad perspective on Artificial Intelligence and its role in anaesthesia.

He noted that the field of Anaesthesia as a speciality has evolved to a larger extent in the last 150 years from the demonstration of Anaesthesia in 1846 to the involvement of technology in the present era. "With the advances in technology and pharmacology, anaesthesia has become safe to the extent that any complications due to anaesthesia are very rare. The word anaesthesia itself means no pain. The role of an anesthesiologist during the surgery is that the patient is in deep sleep and pain-free.

One of the transformed things in anaesthesia is the advent of Artificial Iintelligence (AI) and how it would change the future of anaesthesia. Despite all these advancements, AI has its disruptive nature, one of which is the transparency behind the algorithms used to train these AI systems. The same algorithms might not be applicable to all of the cases handled. For example, something that has been tested in the US might not be applicable to other countries like India or the Middle East," explained Dr. Arvind Palanisamy.

"The other crisis is that all of the software used in training on Artificial Intelligence requires a lot of power and energy, where a huge sum of computers are involved. It is assumed that this might become the leading cause of global warming with the emission of the largest carbon dioxide. The other major concern among the public is that if everything is automated what will happen to employment and how would the employment rate change in future? According to me, the ultimate interface is the relationship between a doctor and a patient.

Trust, compassion and empathy should be the foundation of that interface. Unless all these three factors are intact, nothing can change despite the amount of development and technology invested in medicine unless we strive to be the stewards of technology and have a control over it," he further added.

Highlighting the advantages of AI in healthcare, Dr. Arvind remarked that it eliminates bias. "Humans tend to be biased at some point in decision-making and with this comes the possibility of error. AI is specifically designed to be agnostic and unbiased. In addition to this, the management of patient data is digitized simplifying data management, while recurrent activities that are laborious and power-consuming are simplified through AI," he concluded.

The GARC 2023 has been successful in offering the purpose for which it was held. The resourceful four-day conference for brainstorming and updation of knowledge concluded with participants gaining much experience in advanced technologies.

Ganga Hospital Anaesthesia Refresher Course GARC healthcare

Ganga Hospital in Coimbatore hosts Ganga Anaesthesia Refresher Course 2023

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