UNAIR NEWS – Department of Thoracic Cardiovascular Surgery (BTKV) is one of the departments in Faculty of Medicine (FK) Universitas Airlangga (UNAIR). BTKV Department was formed on December 21, 2018, according to UNAIR Rector’s Decree No.1785 / UN3 / 2018 which stated the department as a separate development from the Department of Surgery, Faculty of Medicine UNAIR.
The excellence of BTKV Department is from its specific surgery it performs, such as heart, lungs and blood vessel surgeries. The students will become graduates who are competent to carry out their specialist practices. As there are limited BTKV experts in Indonesia, it also becomes a distinct quality of the department.
“Until now, it is rare and there is limited number of experts in Indonesia, even though their services are often needed,” explained dr. Heroe Soebroto, Sp.B., Sp.BTKV (K), as Head of BTKV Department.
The excellence is supported by the Department’s annual activity which provides knowledge and surgery experience sharing with a lecturer or a surgeon from well-established centers to improve services and education.
In addition, there are established collaborations both with domestic institutions, such as Dr. Cipto Mangunkusumo Hospital, Jakarta, Faculty of Medicine University of Indonesia, Jakarta, and Dr. Ramelan Naval Hospital, Surabaya, and with international institution abroad, such as the Kuala Lumpur National Heart Institute (JN), Malaysia, Seoul National University Bundang and Hospital Republic of Korea.
The major plan of the Department is to have four divisions on Thoracic, Adult Cardiac, Congenital Cardiac and Vascular, which can develop, both in terms of services and education, so BTKV Department can become the leading service and education center in Indonesia.
Even so, Department has challenges need to be dealt with, such as limited resources in terms of infrastructure, human resources and local / government insurance which limit movement or to make the best governance difficult to be implemented. However, they already have a plan to deal with it.
“The way to deal with it is by increasing the number of staff for each division to improve the number of services and education,” said dr. Heroe.
There are also several alumni who are successful in their fields such as Laksma TNI IDG Nalendra Jaya Iswara, dr., Sp.B., Sp.BTKV (K) as the former Director of Naval Hospital who is now the Director of Indrapura Field Hospital, Ivan Joalsen, dr. Sp.BTKV which has been successful in developing BTKV services in Samarinda Balikpapan and its surrounding area, Prof. Dr. med. Puruhito, dr., Sp.B., Sp.BTKV (K) Former Rector of Universitas Airlangga (UNAIR), as well as Prof. Dr. med. Paul Tahalele, dr., Sp.B., Sp.BTKV (K) as the former chairman of several associations and now Chairman of the BTKV Association as well as Dean of Faculty of Medicine Widya Mataram University, Yogyakarta. (*)
Author: Rista Novianti
Editor : Nuri Hermawan
