Dr Jowhara Al Qahtani
The residency training programs at the Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) have significantly improved in the past several years and gained international recognition.
HMC is first healthcare system in the region to achieve prestigious institutional accreditation by the ACGME-I, the international arm of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), and 14 of HMC’s residency training programs have successfully achieved the accreditation, said Dr Jowhara Al Qahtani, a General Surgery resident at HMC.
“The residency training programs have improved a lot, especially in the past four years. The programmes are very competitive and meet international standards. High level of medical competency is reflected in the programs and many from other countries such as Malaysia, Afghanistan, Oman, Kuwait, India and Nepal have joined the HMC for residency training,” she told The Peninsula.
“Residency training is a vital step in a physician’s progression to practice. HMC meets the highest and most rigorous standards in specialized physician training,” said Dr Al Qahthani, who graduated from Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar class 2013. She was a former resident at Maimonides Medical Center in NYC in USA 2014, and a former Academic Chief in 2017.
According to Dr Al Qahthani, the surgery department at HMC was very welcoming in implementing her experience gained in the US. She also said that HMC’s surgical services and the capacity to serve people have expanded, recently. “The surgery department at HMC has develop dramatically over the past few years. Hamad General Hospital being the largest hospital in the country, is accommodating increased number of cases, the waiting list has been reduced, more surgeons have been recruited, a surgical centre is under development,” said Dr Al Qahthani.
“The surgery department has introduced more sub specialities. The new operating theaters have truly transformed and modernized the surgical environment at the country’s busiest academic hospital, providing the latest technologically advanced operating rooms and surgical equipment,” she added.
The opening of the new surgical services facility has significantly expanded HMC’s surgical services capacity and provided a bespoke complex in which HMC’s expert surgical teams can treat patients using the most technologically advanced equipment.
The new 10,000 square meter development features 20 ultramodern surgical theaters, a 19-bed Trauma Intensive Care Unit, a 15-bed Surgical Intensive Care Unit and three hybrid operating rooms that provide state-of-the-art real time imaging through CT, MRI, Brain Lab and Artis Zeego imaging technology.
One of the new operating theaters also features the latest high-tech robotic surgery apparatus – the da Vinci Xi surgical robot, which Hamad surgeons use to perform a variety of specialist and general surgeries.
