Postgraduate Diploma in Emergency Medicine in India

BACKGROUND: In India, and other low majority of emergency care is provided by frontline providers without specialty training in emergency medicine. In order to fill this need, we developed the Indian Postgraduate Diploma in Emergency Medicine (PGDEM), a 1-year skills-focused course for practicing doctors. This article describes the curriculum development and implementation as well as the follow-up survey conducted to gauge the impact of the course. METHODS: Programme graduates were surveyed via e-mail. All participation was voluntary and survey data remained anonymous. RESULTS: A total of 98.1% of graduates reported that the skills and knowledge they gained during the programme were important to their current job; 94.7% reported using their training from the course on a regular basis. Graduates reported an improvement in confidence performing all procedures taught during the course. Respondents work in a variety of medical specialties, including emergency medicine (50.0%), cardiology (5.8%), internal medicine (11.5%) and family medicine (23.1%). DISCUSSION: PGDEM graduates overwhelmingly view the knowledge and skills they learned as essential training that they use on a regular basis and practice in a variety of medical specialties after completing the course. The PGDEM represents a unique model to provide training in emergency medicine and acute care to the frontline doctors who are frequently responsible for providing emergency care in LMICs. The PGDEM training model can be scaled up rapidly, with the potential to increase capacity in developing emergency care systems.