MEDICAL PROJECT - KANDY 2018

After your introduction week, you will be observing patients alongside a doctor or a nurse at one of the oldest and largest hospital in Kandy, Sri Lanka. The fall of the Kandyan Kingdom in 1815, lead to establishment of Western (English) Medicine and initiation of Hospitals throughout the Island. Dr. John Davy was an army surgeon and physician to Governor Sir Robert Brownrigg from 1817 to 1819. He came to Kandy with the British Troops and lived next to Diyawadana Nilame resident in Malabar Street. (At present it is named as Anagarika Dharmapala Mawatha). A Military Hospital was built in a renovated existing building and was located at the site of the present 'Kandyan Art Association'. Later it served both military and civilians especially for Cholera and Smallpox. After 1821, Indian labourers came to Sri Lanka for coffee and later tea enterprises. Civil hospitals were needed due to poor nutrition, cholera and Malaria. Once the civil medical department was separated from the military service, Colonial Surgeons were appointed to Central Province. This medical Board appointed vaccination officers who were responsible for vaccinating the public against small pox.In 1861 there was an infectious disease hospital in Deyyannewela (the small pox hospital). This pauper hospital was later expanded to become the General Hospital Kandy. One of the very first buildings of the Kandy Hospital was the Cholera ward in 1866. Teaching Hospital Kandy with strong links to the University of Peradeniya, conducts undergraduate training programmes for the university students studying at the Medicine and Post Graduate Institute of Medicine (PGIM) which is a national institute attached to the University of Colombo. PGIM appoints post-graduate trainees, registrars and senior registrars to this hospital on a regular basis as this is one of the oldest Hospitals which provides the entire range of medical and surgical specialties under the administration of a single institution. Teaching Hospital Kandy is a training centre for the student nurses who are coming from the Nurses Training School in the Hospital. It also provides teaching facilities for foreign students who seek exposure on Tropical Diseases. This hospital has over 2200 beds. By joining this project, your main task would be to observe or monitor the patients, treatments, techniques, etc. alongside the local staff working at the hospital. The project aims to give understanding and learning for participants interested in the field of medicine and get exposed to various methods of treating patients in need.