King saud medical complex 2015

King Saud Medical City –  is a hospital in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. It is a tertiary care centre for medicine and surgery especially spinal and neurosurgery. It is international recognized centre for training in medicine and surgery. It has 1200 ward beds + 140 intensive-care unit beds. By virtue of the bed capacity and patient load, KSMC is by far the largest hospital of Saudi Arabia. KSMC’s ER department is one of the busiest in the country with a variety of accident and emergency cases pouring in who are triaged and then referred to particular specialties. Teams of doctors from all specialties are available round the clock to provide emergency medical treatment for all patients – emergency or admitted.

KSMC meets all the criteria for training post-graduate doctors. Consultants, specialists, registrars, residents and interns from all specialties and sub specialties form groups within their departments. Each group follows a hierarchy which forms a pyramid, having interns at the bottom, rising to residents, registrars followed by specialists and consultants all headed by the head of a Group. All groups are headed by the Head of the Department. On a daily basis, a team of doctors from each group are on-call, forming a team consisting of intern, R1 (first year resident), R2 (second year resident), R4 or R5 (registrar), Specialist and finally Consultant. All cases referred to the team will be endorsed to each of its member and decisions regarding choice of treatment will be made by the consultant. Thus the patient and the team of doctors are benefited equally. The patient has a team of doctors caring for him, thus even if a member of the team is busy a senior covers him and vigils the patient. All the team members learn from the Consultant who imparts a blend of education with experience. An on-call team of KSMC is a blend of quality and quantity!

All patients needing emergency operations are sent to a special operating room which caters to emergency operating room services. Those patients needing ICU services are shifted there without delay. The elective operating rooms are in a Theater complex on the third floor. The main ICU reserved for infected cases is located in the main building whereas the new ICU catering to medicine, surgery, cardiology, neurology and other specialties (ENT, Dental, Orthopedics) is located in the first and second floors of the medical tower. Specialties such as obstetrics and gynecology, pediatrics, dental have their own buildings (towers) which cater to serving patients of those diseases. In the near future, more towers will be added such as the surgical tower and emergency services tower (which are under construction).

It must be pointed out that many specialties are doing a superb job at KSMC. Department of general surgery (GS) is by far the busiest and also extends services to hepatobiliary surgery, breast and endocrine surgery and bariatric surgery (recently accredited by Saudi Commission of Health Specialties). ER services are commendable and so is the service provided by nephrology department. The amount of care and dedication given to patients of Chronic Renal failure is just spell-bound. Orthopedics, internal medicine, pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology and dental department also have a good turn over and good patient satisfaction.

King saud medical complex Operative room

The medical record department of the hospital plays a pivotal role in any hospital. The MRD of KSMC is unique in that it holds all the records of the patients. On requesting a particular patients record, after the necessary permissions and legal formalities, a medical professional found records dating from time of the patients birth till the patients current age (42) having all records of dialysis, medical treatments, diabetic care, operations etc.! The files weighed more that 10 kilograms! The usual policy of MRD is to store the files for five years are prescribed by medico-legal authorities, but at KSMC all the records are preserved thus making it very convenient for healthcare professional to get a superb overview of the patient after a short study of the medical records.

It is amazing to note that KSMC was known by different names at different times. Initially as Riyadh Medical Centre, later as Riyadh Central Hospital and presently as King Saud Medical City. Most people in the past and even at present refer to the hospital as Shumiasy hospital (pronounced as Shu-may-see). The name stems form a (family name) famous family that lived in the area, after which the district was named. Interestingly, no official papers, documents or media references have been made to KSMC by the name of Shumaisy!

Since a few years KSMC has upgraded its status to a medical city (King Saud Medical City)

Click Here for King Saud Medical Complex Web Site