Armed Forces Medical College

This dept has the unique privilege of performing the first thoracic surgery in India in 1945 under the renowned Maj Leigh Collis. The first chest surgery was performed on 10 Dec 1945, and one of the earliest open heart operations in the country in 1969. Thereafter, the Dept has grown in leaps and bounds in the past few years and is well known in the field of cardiac and thoracic surgery the world over. Annually, the centre does approximately 550 cardiac and thoracic cases.The centre has matched international expertise and results in surgery for Coronary Artery Disease. All types of surgeries for coronary artery diseases, including off-pump coronary artery bypass grafting (OPCAB), total arterial revascularization are done on a routine basis. The recently introduced Video Assisted Thoracic Surgery has also been performed at this centre. The era of total arterial graft revascularisation was established in this centre in 2001 and the results are evident. Adult cardiac surgery included the Bentall operation and total aortic arch replacement.

The center has recently emerged as Cardiac Transplant center and has performed adult as well as pediatric Heart transplants. It also has become the first AFMS Centre to get a patient transferred on ECMO from a different hospital.

Real progress has been made in the field of pediatric cardiac surgery, with complex congenital cases being operated upon regularly. Arterial switch operation for TGA, Senning’s atrial switch operations, hypoplastic arch repairs, Extra-Cardiac Fontan, Rastelli operation using xenografts (bovine & porcine), are some of the complex surgical procedures performed. QR code-based video advice is available for post OP instructions to the parents of Pediatric patients. The department boasts of a state-of-the-art ICU with contemporary monitoring and lifesaving equipment and a step-down post-operative high dependency unit where all beds are now monitored with state-of-the-art equipment.

Academic excellence has always been at the forefront pari passu with professional improvement. The 54th Annual conference of the Indian Association of Cardiovascular & Thoracic Surgeons, organized by AFMC & MH CTC from 21 – 24 Feb 2008 was attended by 600 delegates from all over the country and 30 foreign delegates. It was a resounding success.