News

Specialized training for medical officers

July 17, 2015 1:28 am

Local medical officers are undergoing endoscopy training at the CWM Hospital in Suva.

Endoscopy is a nonsurgical procedure used to examine a person’s digestive tract using a flexible tube with a light and camera attached to it.

Fiji School of Medicine Professor Dr Joji Malani says the training has been created to address the need for local specialist training in this field in the South Pacific, which has been previously absent.

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Dr Joji says an advantage of this training is that doctors can now perform this treatment locally.

“If someone is bleeding acutely inside, we can look and stop the bleed, we can remove tumors, we can dilate structures. These are things we were unable to do just a few years ago and it is safer for the patients, it’s good for the patients, it’s good for the system and the cost goes all the way down.”

100 doctors and nurses have been trained so far by the Australian and New Zealand Gastroenterology International Training Association.