The University Clinical Center Tuzla has started the First School of Obstetric Anesthesia in the framework of the cooperation between our hospital and the non- profit organization Kybele.
During their visit to Tuzla, Kybele team members Ferne Braveman, MD,Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, USA, Prof. Dr. Edward Riley, anesthesiologist, Stanford University Medical Center, USA, Kelly Fodoruk, MD, Stanford University Medical Center, USA and Ivan Veličković,MD, Obstetrical Anesthesiology, SUNY Downstate Medical Center, Brooklyn, New York, USA will provide hands-on training in obstetric anesthesia techniques, with emphasis on using anesthesia during labor and delivery, for our team of anesthesiologists.
On the occasion, Dr. Ivan Veličković from SUNY Downstate Medical Center, Brooklyn, New York said that Kybele is a non- profit humanitarian organization dedicated to improving childbirth safety worldwide. The organization brings US, Canadian, Australian and European healthcare professionals together to work in teams that travel to host countries. Kybele team members donate their time and experience to provide education and training in techniques that improve healthcare safety. Kybele team visited Bosnia and Herzegovina and the region eight times, and the city of Tuzla twice.
The chief of anesthesia at the Clinic of Gynecology and Obstetrics Prim. Dr. Senida Keser explained that there are two types of regional anesthesia, spinal and epidural, which provide numbness or loss of sensation of certain parts of body. The main goal of introducing regional anesthesia is to be used during a surgical procedure such as cesarean delivery. During this school of anesthesia, our doctors will learn about the application of epidural anesthesia, spinal anesthesia and combined spinal epidural anesthesia. Prim. Dr. Keser also explained that spinal anesthesia involves the injection of a local anesthetic through the dura mater into the spinal space through a fine needle to act on the nerves of the spinal cord. In epidural anesthesia a drug is injected into the epidural space located outside of the dural membrane, which means that there is no contact with the spinal canal. Epidural anesthesia is considered to be safer and more subtle compared to spinal anesthesia, and it is also more commonly used. Moreover, Dr. Keser pointed that not all women are good candidates for these types of anesthesia. An appropriate preoperative anesthesia assessment and evaluation is necessary for all candidates prior to initiation of neuroaxial anesthesia.