Seth GSMC & KEM Hospital

The Department of Orthopaedics caters to about 400 outpatients daily and has an indoor bed strength of 280. This makes it the single largest department in the hospital, and the largest orthopedic department in the country.

Set up in 1942 as the first dedicated Department of Orthopaedics in India, the services offered are regarded as one of the best in the country.

Manned by an efficient staff, many of whom have obtained further training at some of the finest institutions in the world, the department has earned itself laurels in both the national and international arena. The department regularly produces merit holders at both national and international examinations and is the “Mecca” for orthopedic postgraduate training

Advanced surgical procedures such as spinal surgery, arthroplasty, arthroscopy and sports medicine, limb lengthening, complex trauma surgery and pediatric orthopaedics are performed regularly.

The Department of Pediatrics was established in this hospital in 1958. Since then, the department has advanced in high quality patient care and management-catering to around 15000 patients from all over India every year .

This Department has established itself as one of the standards in pediatric medicine with its intensive academic curriculum and state of the art medical facilities with pediatric EMS, pediatric ICU and a round the clock team of multispeciality pediatricians, including emergencists and intensivists.

Over the years, the department has retained its position as one of the best pediatric medicine centers in India.

Central clinical Biochemistry Laboratory and Emergency services.

Location:

Post-Mortem Building,first floor at the Central Clinical Biochemical Laboratory, a total of nearly 700 blood Samples, from 42 general wards, 6 intensive care units and 6 different OPDs are processed every day. About 4000 different biochemical tests are carried out.

Instruments available:

• Hitachi 911-commisioned in 1997
• Express 550-two machines commsisioned in 1991.
• Ciba Corning 664 for electrolytes commision in 1991.
• Electrolyte easy-commisionead in 1998.
• Colorimeters for manual estimations.
• Flame photometers.
• Research Activities.
• The department is recognised for M.Sc.(Papers), M.Sc.(Research) & Ph.D degree programmes.
• Research is carried out in the dept with the collaboration of other departments of the institution.

Many developments have changed the life of the department of Anaesthesiology. This service specialty not only has changed its appearance from a technology to a full- fledged science of Anaesthesiology, but also is almost on the threshold of branching into subspecialties. It has progressed from a very small department to one of the biggest department not only in the institute but also in Asia .

Dr Moksha Madan Desai was the 1st honorary anaesthesiologist to join this institution in 1925 followed by Dr B.N.Sircar, Dr G.S. Ambardekar and Dr Y.G. Bhojraj who contributed tremendously towards the growth of this department. In 1963, due to increasing demands for full-time faculty members, Dr A.J. Dhruva was appointed as 1st professor to head full time department of Anaesthesiology in India . Since then following people have been heads of this vast department viz; Dr A.J. Dhruva, Dr M.M. Bhatt, Dr D.B. Deval, Dr A.M. Katre, Dr L.D. Naik, Dr L.S. Chaudhari, Dr L. V. Dewoolkar and presently by Dr Sarla Pandya.

It is remarkable that cardiac surgery started in our institution only a few years after it started making its impact in the Western World. the foundations of the Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery department were firmly laid by late Dr. P. K. Sen. He started with closed heart surgeries but was soon closing atrial septal defects using hypothermia and inflow occlusion techniques (1957) before doing so on extra corporeal circulation in March, 1962. Once the heart lung machine became available, other open heart operations like open commissurotomies, valve replacements and repairs of congenital heart defects became routine.

It speaks volumes for Dr. Sen’s quest to be in the forefront that the world’s 5th and 6th heart transplants have been recorded at the K.E.M. Hospital in 1968. But Dr. Sen’s contributions were richly rewarded when he was awarded the Padmabhushan in 1969. He was the recepient of the Dr. B. C. Roy oration and the Neelratan Sarkar oration in the same year. He was well ahead of his time when we notice that transmyocardial laser revascularisation of the nineties is only an extension of his myocardial acupuncture for the treatment of ischaemic heart disease, based on his original research on snake heart principles. And so our Department is named after him as a mark of honour.

Dr. T. P. Kulkarni joined Dr. Sen as Asst. Professor in 1959 and helped him in the various department activities. Dr. Kulkarni was awarded the Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship and trained for two years under Dr. Michael E. Debakey, the pioneering surgeon, who is well known for his contribution to surgery for aneurysms of the thoracic and abdominal aorta. Dr. T. P. Kulkarni on his return contributed further to the development of all vascular surgery.

The department grew rapidly from there on with several energetic, dedicated and eminent surgeons like Dr. G. B. Parulkar, Dr. SharadPandey, Dr. A. P. Chaukar and Dr. S. S. Bhattacharya.

Dr. G. B. Parulkar took on from where Dr. Sen left, brought the CVTS department on the international field. Dr. Parulkar had been an Evarts Graham Fellow and had cultivated life long friendship with who is who of the Cardiovascularspeciality of the world. He was bestowed with Padmabhushan in 1998 and he was the recepient of the Dr. B. C. Roy award for the most eminent medical man of the year 1997.Dr. Parulkar retired as Dean and Professor-Director of Surgery in 1989 Dr. S. S. Bhattacharya started the Coronary Artery Bypass surgery after training with Dr. Dudley Johnson in Milwaukee and left the institutions in 1982-83 to become an institution by him in myocardial revascularization.

The CVTS department has been acknowledged as one of the ten best heart hospitals in the country in Today-Plus (1996) and the department was again recognized as the best training programme for M.Ch students in India Today opinion poll (1998).

While we are proud to have this coveted place of honour, it is the hard work and dedication of our predecessors that has gone into making of this department. The period from 1975 till date has seen a phenomenal increase in work output. Unlike many other teaching institutions, the department has significant load of Thoracic and Vascular cases making the training programme very comprehensive. The surgical excellence of the department attracted patients from rest of Maharashtra as also from all over the country and a few from neighbouring countries. A unique event of Heart Valve Mela was organized in 1997 to bring together patients operated for Heart Valve Replacement over the years and we are happy that several other centers in the country followed suit., valvular, coronary CABG especially off pump i.e beating heart surgery, and all vascular cases.