A session of many specialities

It will be a medical session with a difference. Usually, the various “colleges” of doctors have their own exclusive sessions dealing only with their specialities.

The Ceylon College of Physicians, however, will take a different path during their annual scientific sessions to be launched on September 26 at the Cinnamon Grand Hotel in Colombo.

“We are looking at the issues from a multi-disciplinary angle,” says the dynamic President of the College, Prof. Chandrika Wijeyaratne, who herself dabbles in many aspects of medicine. “A unique feature about the scientific sessions this year is the collaboration across many disciplines in the fields of medicine.”

A glance through the tight programme for the four-day sessions, as the College celebrates its 40th anniversary, throws up enough proof to back this claim.

With the theme ‘Towards improving maternal health in Sri Lanka’ the sessions being jointly held with the International Society of Obstetric Medicine covers a wide range of topics in the plenaries, symposia, interactive case discussions including important issues such as heart disease, diabetes, kidney disease and hypertensive disorders in pregnancy. ‘Maternal mortality from medical disorders in Sri Lanka’; ‘Feto-maternal care of the pregnant diabetic’ and many more are on the agenda.

And the bottom line the college is hoping to promote for the welfare of the patient is building bridges in medicine to ensure that doctors from different specialities do not work in isolation but work together to give of their best to the patients.

The programme on obstetric medicine held in partnership with the International Society of Obstetric Medicine and the Sri Lanka College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, Prof. Wijeyaratne believes is a first in South Asia. “This will provide a forum for medical doctors from many specialized fields to discuss and exchange their scientific expertise and experiences. Team-based partnerships are vital for quality healthcare.”

Among those making presentations, 30 local and 30 foreign, are big names while about 400 are expected to attend the sessions. The results of a trial in the control of diabetes in pregnancy will be released during the sessions. Two special workshops will discuss the physicians’ role in tackling the ever-increasing burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and also alcohol abuse and how doctors can help.

NCDs such as heart and kidney diseases are caused by diabetes, hypertension and high cholesterol.“An increased rate of heart disease resulting in death and disability has been observed and there needs to be an organized programme to counteract this trend.

A few months ago the Health Ministry, WHO and other professional organizations sat down together and formulated a draft national policy framework to fight NCDs and we will discuss this at the workshop along with the physicians’ role,” said Prof. Rifdy Mohideen.