Armed Forces Medical College

One of the earliest respiratory centers in the Armed Forces, the department of Pulmonology, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine at Military Hospital (Cardio Thoracic Centre) is also the only centre in the armed Forces providing training in this specialty to candidates from the armed forces, Foreign defense forces and civilian candidates. Being a super specialty tertiary care training institute, the centre provides the latest facilities in diagnostics and therapeutics in the field.

With a humble beginning of a few inpatient wards and an OPD complex, the department has achieved a lot of milestones. It is the first and only respiratory department in the armed Forces with a Respiratory Intensive care Unit specialized just for the acutely ill patients with respiratory diseases. The respiratory Intensive Care Unit also houses isolation rooms to better cater for the patients with dangerous and highly contagious respiratory diseases.

The diagnostic capabilities were multiplied with the addition of a fully equipped state-of-the-art, level 4 sleep lab with polysomnography and CPAP titration facilities, a respiratory lab covering the entire spectrum of pulmonary function tests such as spirometry, diffusion lung capacity of carbon monoxide, six-minute walk test, FENO and body plethysmography. Further, a bronchoscopy suite with state-of-the-art facilities such as video bronchoscopy, endobronchial ultrasound along with emerging modalities such as cryo biopsy enhanced the diagnostic and therapeutic capacity of the department.

Along with training of candidates in MD Pulmonary medicine, the department also plays a major role in training MBBS students and nursing candidates of the Military Nursing in the area of respiratory medicine. The students pursuing Internal Medicine in AFMC also have to complete rotation in the respiratory department. In 2019, the department has also started conducting the practical portion of the DNB exam for candidates from all over the country.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the department played a major role and successfully treated more than 3500 cases of critical COVID cases including serving, exservicemen, their dependants and even civilians. The department played a critical role in development of management guidelines for COVID and even reported the novel use of Tocilizumab in Armed forces hospital. The department played an important role in Post COVID management of patients including the novel Post COVID multispecialty clinic and use of antifibrotics in Post COVID lung sequelae. The department also provided 24 hours medical cover to the garrison flu clinic. The department was highly appreciated for its role in the COVID pandemic and was awarded many prestigious awards including Sena medal, COAS and GOC-in-C commendation cards and even Maharashtra Governor felicitated the Officer and other ranks for their critical role in management of serious COVID-19 patients. The department was also part of many international and national COVID trials including the WHO-ICMR Solidarity trial, Solidarity Plus trial and WHO-ICMR Post COVID Observational study.