Introduction

Introduction:

Gulab Devi Hospital was initially conceived by a prominent Hindu political leader of Punjab in 1928 who built a memorial hospital/treatment facility to perpetuate the memories of his beloved mother Gulab Devi. This small 28 bedded facility over the years has now grown to become a 1500 bedded chest hospital dealing with chest and cardiac ailments – the biggest in this country.

In order to keep the doctors working here, abreast of the latest progress and advances in the disciplines of chest and cardiac diseases, the educational activities were proceeding since long; however it was felt that the vast number of patients presenting here with such myriad patterns of diseases could easily provide a rich research substrate for generating pioneering management guidelines for the diseases in this field the world over. In order to translate this aim into a practical shape, a need for energetic researchers and teachers of these disciplines were needed. Concurrent to this aspiration, the Punjab Government brought forth the idea of producing a health technologists cadre which would bridge the gap between the nurses and doctors to provide for a new cadre of health care technologists with more focused training in patient care, thus enhancing the quality of patient care. In accord a four years B.Sc (Hons) Allied Health Sciences education was started in 2007 in the five disciplines viz Cardiac Perfusion Technology, Medical Lab Technology, Emergency & Intensive Care Technology, Respiratory Therapy and Operation Theatre Technology. The continuous medical education program of the hospital gradually transformed into Diploma in Cardiology and Diploma in Tuberculosis & Chest Diseases diplomas for postgraduate doctors under the affiliation of University of Health Sciences since 2005. The educational activities with time gathered further momentum and a five year degree program of Doctor of Physiotherapy was also commenced in 2014.

The involvement of so many young aspirants of Allied Health care and postgraduate doctors in the research substrate available in Gulab Devi Hospital will hopefully generate guidelines for treating these diseases in the light of modern scientific knowledge in the most efficacious way.