IAOH- GUJCON 2016

IAOH Vadodara Branch organized regional conference namely GUJCON2016 at Surya Plave Hotel Vadodara. I am member of organizing committee and contributed one article in conference book.

The content of article is here

Scope & Opportunities in Occupational Health

Authors –

1.      Dr. Niraj Pandit, Professor, Department of Community Medicine, SBKS MIRC, Sumandeep Vidyapeeth, Piparia, Vadodara –Email – drniraj74@gmail.com

2.      Dr. Bhavesh Bariya, Assistant Professor, Department of Community Medicine, SBKS MIRC, Sumandeep Vidyapeeth, Piparia, Vadodara

Occupational health (OH) is a  discipline which deals with all aspects of health and safety at the workplace and has strong focus on prevention of hazards(1). It is delivered by multiprofessional teams that include occupational health physician, nurses, physiotherapists, ergonomists, psychologists and safety professionals who are specially train in this area. In India occupational health physicians are usually medical graduates with specialist like master in community medicine or certificate course in industrial health or diploma course in industrial health.(2) The specialty requires a broad knowledge of medicine and other skills, which includes understanding relevant government legislation relating to work; ethics; excellent communication skills; and business development. Occupational health physician is key person for the team of occupational Health Center. He/She must have an understanding of epidemiology, disease prevention and toxicology. He/She should be able to identify, assess the risk to health of,  to know how to control, workplace hazards and also know how to recognize, prevent and manage occupational disease. He/She can guide and manage these risks and on their implications for employees’ health.

Courses available in Occupational Health in Gujarat:

In India, there are 21 institutes who are offering courses in the area of occupational and environmental health. The courses are very from short duration training to doctoral degree course like certificate course (Associate Fellow of Industrial Health), Diploma in Industrial Health (DIH) and PhD in Occupational Health.(3)   But just limiting to Gujarat and Mumbai, the list of courses are given below -

Name of course	Institute	Duration	Eligibility	Web link
AFIH	IIPH, Gandhinagar	3 months	MBBS doctors with a minimum of one year experience in industry / Occupational healthOR two years in any other field after internship	https://www.phfi.org/our-activities/academic-programmes/courses-a-admissions/1141
Diploma in Industrial Health	All India institute of Hygiene and Public Health MS University Vadodara*	2 years	MBBS with completed internship, Two year full time Post-graduate Diploma, Recognised by Medical Council of India (MCI)	http://aiihph.gov.in/?page_id=55
Certificate Course in Industrial Health	M S University, Vadodara	6 months part time	Part time course which is available for MBBS with completed internship with experience in industrial health	http://www.msubaroda.ac.in/storage/files/1434326597/Prospectus_15.pdf
AFIH	Central Labor Institute, Mumbai	3 months	MBBS with registration with council and minimum 1 year experience in industry or relevant field	http://www.dgfasli.nic.in/announce1.htm
PhD in Occupational health	NIOH, AHmedabad	3 years fulltime	MD degree	http://www.nioh.org/phdguides.html

* Due to some administrative issues at present course is on hold at Medical College Vadodara.

Opportunities:  There are various opportunities after getting specialist degree in occupational health. They are listed below

Certifying Surgeons

The Director of Industrial Safety & Health of respective State Government appoints qualified medical practitioners to be certifying surgeons for the purposes of Factory. The certifying surgeon shall carry out such duties as may be prescribed in connection with- examination and certification of young persons under this Act; examination o f persons engaged in factories in such dangerous occupations or processes as may be prescribed; and medical supervisions for any factory where cases of illness have occurred and where young persons are employed in any work which is likely to cause injury to their health.(4)

Occupational physician at industries –

Many large industries are recruiting Occupational Health physician as full time for preventing and promoting health of employees. Here key areas of work are pre-employment and periodic health check ups, prevention of various occupational diseases in industry, liaison with the safety officials and administration, investigation of accidents in the industry and sickness absenteeism as well as dealing with the medical reimbursement bills submitted by the employees. Along with this they may play role as general duty medical officer where he/she is generally have to deal with various health problems reported by the employees and their family members on regular and emergency basis.

Consulting Occupational Health Centre

After completing the required post MBBS course in occupational Health, the doctors can set up their own occupational health centres as consultant. It is concerned with the various level of health check ups, issue of fitness certificate after a period of illness and various preventive advices against occupational diseases and other. Strong collaboration with the industries is required for getting success in this field. Similarly this centre can also provide health education and training in first aid to the factory workers.

Other Opportunities – Occupational physician can also work as administrator in human resource agency which may require sound knowledge of management. She/He can give an expert opinion for recruitment of doctors, nurses, first aid trainers and technicians.

There is also an opportunity for doctors as a faculty in various training institutes in occupational health.

Research in Occupational Health is also a new scope in industrial health. The doctors can work with various research institutes for research in Occupational Health.

Various small industries are also hiring the doctors for providing curative and preventive health services on part-time basis. In this case the doctors have simultaneous exposure to various workers with multiple types of occupational exposures.

There are various upcoming opportunities and scope in Occupation Health.

1.         WHO | Occupational health [Internet]. WHO. [cited 2016 Nov 11]. Available from: http://www.who.int/topics/occupational_health/en/

2.         Tiwari RR, Sharma A, Zodpey SP. Occupational health training in India: Need for a competency-driven approach. Indian J Occup Environ Med. 2016;20(1):39–43.

3.         Zodpey SP, Negandhi H, Tiwari RR. Mapping “Occupational Health” courses in India: A systematic review. Indian J Occup Environ Med. 2009 Dec;13(3):135–40.

4.         The Factories Act, Chapter - II [Internet]. [cited 2016 Nov 17]. Available from: http://dgfasli.nic.in/html/factyact/cii10.htm

Speech at Nadiad Medical Association (NMA) on 16th October 2016

Nadiad Medical Association has invited me as Chief guest of function installation ceremony of new team. few photos of same

Speech at Nadiad Medical Association (NMA) on 16^th October 2016 on occasion of installation ceremony of new team of NMA

Dear Dignitaries on the dais  and off the dais. First I like to give my deep feeling of thank you to call me on this great occasion of installation ceremony of new team of NMA. I am wishing very best wishes to Dr. Deepak Patanwadia who is now President of Nadiad Medical Association. This is a great opportunity to talk with my fellow medical doctors.

On this occasion, my speech was made very simple by background speech of installation officer. He has rightly pointed out the issue of lifestyle disease in community and even among doctors. And second point he raised about incorporation of doctors in consumer protection act.  I will like to share my views on both important topics.

Changing lifestyle is most common and acceptable phenomenon at world level and we cannot be spared out of it. In this scenario we need to understand the World Health Organization definition of Health. Health is a state of physical, mental and social wellbeing, not merely absence of disease. So we need to understand the importance of three aspects of health, not only physical health which we as doctors are looking; but social and mental health which is also equally important. As association, what I observing since evening and post dinner function, that we are quite social and we are doing many social gathering at association level. This is very good sign of social health. As a community physician I have special interest in social health. As you know i did wrote a textbook on “Sociology and Health for Health Professionals”. Similarly we need to keep in mind when patient setting in front of us at OPD about his social health. We shall also focus on preventive and promotive health at various levels. It will be of great health to community compare to curative health. You must agree with me that during latter half of private practice majority of doctors become preventive physician and focusing more on preventive and promotive aspects. But see we are community physicians who are practicing preventive medicine at young age. That is one part.

Second about consumer protection act, it is sensitive issue and we need to act collectively. Out practice should be so transparent that nobody can pin point finger to us. The association level we need to strong and united to fight if anything happen to profession.

On this occasion, i like to congratulate to Dr. Deepak for taking theme of “Global warming” and related activities to focus for next one year. It is right time to take such theme, as carbon emission is increasing like anything. There are lots of our activities which increasing carbon emission, simple example our mobiles in pocket, it is also emitting carbon at great level. So awareness and sensitization programme for global warming, will play large dividend to our generation next.

 With this I again like to say thank you to NMA for this platform.

Thank you to all

Workshop on Approach to Evidence Based Health Care Aug 2016

Workshop on Approach to Evidence Based Health Care was conducted at Gujarat Adani Institute of Medical Science Bhuj on 29th and 30th August 2016.
We are the team of Evidence Based Health Care Practice from Sumandeep Vidyapeeth. Sumandeep Vidaypeeth is teaching Evidence Based Medicine to undergraduate students and postgraduate students. We are creating environment at institute level for evidence based health practice. Our core team of university is working under leadership of Dr. Prasad Muley, Professor, Department Pediatrics. Other team members are Dr. Arti Muley, Dr. Monali Shah, Dr. Ajay George and myself Dr. Niraj Pandit. We are working in this area since more than 5 years.
We did lots many training within university affiliated colleges and trained almost all faculties under concept of Evidence Based Education System (EBES). Now we are training out side campus for benefits of large scientific interest. As part of this mission, we are conducting various workshops for various medical colleges those who are interested to learn.
In last week of August 2016, we conducted one similar workshop at GAIMS, Bhuj.

Those who are interested to invite us for similar workshops you can contact us for same.

Sensitization on EBM to PG's of community medicine of Gujarat

Booster 2015

Indian Association of Preventive and Social Medicine - Gujarat Chapter (IAPSM-GC) has always advocated investing in post graduates of community medicine/ preventive and social medicine and public health fields. The concept resulted in the birth of Post Graduate Studies Support Programme (PGSP), which aims at enhancing the core competencies of PGs.

In this big event of IAPSMGC Booster 2015 which was organized by Department of Community Medicine PDU Medical College, Rajkot. 

I delivered sensitization talk on Evidence based Medicine and its role in advance epidemiology on 30th Oct 2015. It was followed by lecture on systamatic review and mata-analysis by Dr. Mohua Moitra from Surat. 

This was unique experience of sensitizing role of evidence in pool of scientific research. it was great lecture. 

Dr. Niraj Pandit, Professor, Community Medicine 

working on quality evidence generation research and validation of quality of evidence with evidence journal club.  

Training for Attitude and Communication (ATCOM) module & Revised MET at PSMedical College Karamsad

Report of ATCOM module training

The day one of four days training programme is dedicated for the Attitude and Communication (ATCOM) module. The MCI is has decided to implement ATCOM module in undergraduate curriculum across the country in next two years. The key faculties of MEU of all colleges will be trained by regional centre and these trained faculties will train their own faculties at college level. The Graduate Medical Education (GMR 2012) is pending for approval of Government of India. The key goal of GME 2012 is to produce Indian Medical Graduate (IMG) with requisite knowledge, skill, attitudes, values and responsiveness; so that he/she may function appropriately and effectively as physician of first contact of community while being globally relevant. To achieve this goal the key focus of GME 2012 rule is competencies. In these competencies they divided in two groups. First group of competencies are subject-specific and second group is some common competencies like attitude, communication and ethics.

ATCOM module is the training of common competencies at college level. Each teacher needs to play important role for achieving these competencies. MCI has determined the various competencies year-wise. We need to sensitize our college core group and teachers for these competencies.

The module, which is given during training, is consisting of year-wise competencies and the objectives with teaching method of each competence. It also consists of the assessment pattern guideline. The MEU of college needs to work on these competencies and as per feasibility college needs to plan of action. The train MEU faculties will play important role in this exercise. 

Report of Revised Medical Education Technology workshop

The three days revised basic course workshop attended at MCI Regional Centre, PS Medical College Karamsad during 19^th to 21^st April 2016. The salient point of revised course is the competences. In continuation of GMR 2012 the MET workshop is also revised and key focus on competence of IMG.

The ultimate goal of revised MET workshop is to train faculty in such a way that he/she can able to develop competencies based curriculum and able to make assessment of same.

Majority of topics are same as the basic course workshop. But modification is done in depth of knowledge and new principles added at various places. The new topics covered, they were Competence Based Medical Education (CBME), identification of key competencies in subject wise, competence linked SLO, assessment of competence during internal & external exam and educational networking for growth.

Overall the workshop was enjoyable and good for future IMG. The concept is good but the effective implementation is questionable area.

This report is prepared by Dr. Niraj Pandit, Professor, Community Medicine, SBKS MI&RC

Condcted workshop on Quality Evidence Generating Research at IPHA Con2016 Dehradun

I conducted first workshop out side Gujarat in IPHACon2016 at Himalayan Institute of Medical Sciences, Dehradun Uttarakhand on 3rd March 2016.

Report of Workshop on Effective Proposal Writing for Quality Evidence research

The workshop title “Effective Proposal Writing for Quality Evidence research” was conducted by Dr. Niraj Pandit, Professor Department of Community Medicine & Deputy Director Research Cell, Sumandeep Vidyapeeth in collaboration with PGI Chandigarh Dr. Sonu Goel on 3^rd March 2016. The 60^th National Conference of Indian Public Health Association was organized by IPHA Uttarakhand branch of IAPH at Himalayan Institute of Medical Science, Dehradun.

It was a one full day workshop. The workshop covered topics like hypothesis, defining research question, need of evidence, level of evidence, quality check in available evidence, elements of research protocol, primary secondary data, research method and quality check and research ethics. It was nicely coordinated workshop.

There were total 36 participants. The participants were ranging from students to ICMR scientist and senior professor. Majority graded workshop in excellent category.

The concept note of my workshop is as below -

With revolution in Information Technology, the access to information is on tip of finger to pocket of anybody. Thus the concept of information access and utilization is also changed. It is high time to sensitize out Young Turk and even experience academicians & researchers about best use of available evidence for generating good quality evidence in future. The theme of upcoming 23rd Cochrane Colloquium, Vienna is also on ‘Filtering information overload for better decision’. The visionary Dr. Gordon Guyutt and his guide David Sackett from McMaster University Canada have long vision on the information overload. They started to talk on same two decade before and the word Evidence Based
Medicine (EBM) was first coined.

The definition of EBM is ‘the conscientious, explicit and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients with keeping mind the patient’s value and physician’s experience.”

In definition the one of the component is available best evidence. The evidence meaning here is the research outcome, best research evidence for question raised by physician. Thus each research study is generating evidence pool. The numbers of research conducted are increasing day by day. Also the statutory authority and government is insisting on research. Research is getting core in various institutes. Government is also sparing more money for promotion of research. Ultimate goal of all the research funding and research outcome is the getting best evidence and develop evidence based policy for citizen of country. Our country also wanted to develop evidence based health policy with help of our own database. It was assumption that our health policy is not based on our own database. All over world the people are talking and following evidence based health policy and evidence based health care practice.

Looking to this scenario, the Sumandeep Vidyapeeth took lead to develop education system in Indian context, which helps to learn principles of evidence based medicine and thus ultimately students can develop skills of practicing Evidence Based Health Care Practice (EBHCP). Since last few years university team is working in this direction. The university has designed special course of teaching EBM to all students and teaching system such that all faculties and students can develop themselves in direction of EBHCP. This education system is known as Evidence Based Education System. One of the components of this EBES is the Quality Evidence Generating Research (QEGR). I am working specially in this area.

The objectives of QEGR are –

1.      To sensitize about the evidence and research outcome

2.      To get understanding of evidence pyramid and research design

3.      To understand the quality check for available evidence

4.      To learn how to improve the quality of new evidence generation

5.      To learn about concept of primary and secondary data

6.      To learn about various study designs and quality check for that design

Scope of QEGR –

1.      Epidemiology and research are the area of Community medicine, so they can take lead in the quality evidence generation with all other department in medical college for quality research

2.      Evaluation of available evidence is also key area for preventing wastage of resources use. Community Physician can help to optimum utilization of such fund.

3.      In era of plagiarism and IPR, this will help to build research evidence fitting in evidence pyramid.

Broad outline of workshop –

·         Concept of Evidence Based medicine and Evidence of Health Care Practice (EBHCP)

·         History horizon of EBHCP

·         Best evidence and Evidence pyramid (level of evidence)

·         How to check quality of evidence?

·         Why do the quality of study important?

·         How to increase quality of study?

·         Primary data and Secondary data

·         Various study design and quality check

·         Critical appraisal of various scientific article (evidence based journal club)

Who can participate in workshop?

·         It is really golden opportunity for young researchers particularly post
graduate, DM fellow, young teacher or researcher

·         Even mid-career researchers can join

·         Editor of journal, editor board members and publisher can also join

·         Senior academician, researcher and policy maker can join