PULMO-TMC UPSKILL is an educational initiative introduced by the Department of Pulmonary Medicine, Tata Memorial Centre, Mumbai in keeping with our aim of increasing awareness about Pulmonary Oncology amongst Oncologists and Pulmonologists, as well as upskilling trainees and practicing pulmonologists in basic and advanced bronchoscopic, pleural and interventional pulmonology procedures through manikin and simulation based learning.

The commissioning on 8th February 2021 of the Pulmonology Simulation Lab funded from a philanthropic donation led to the incorporation of simulation based learning in our training methods. It is the first of its kind in any Government Institution in Maharashtra and offers simulation and manikin based structured objective training with objective skill assessment and grading against benchmarks to observers, residents and faculty in basic, advanced and emergency bronchoscopic procedures as well as specialised skilling in EBUS and pleural procedures. This has benefitted trainees across specialties like Pulmonology, Surgical Oncology, Anesthesiology across the country through numerous training Workshops conducted by our PULMO-TMC team under this initiative.

Our Department carried out 11 hands-on training workshops since and trained approximately 300 trainees hands-on.

Under this initiative many educational symposia were also organized to propagate awareness amongst pulmonologists and oncologists alike about the niche filed of Onco-Pulmonology including in NAPCON 2021 (virtual MDT) and NAPCON 2022 (Symposium on Lung Cancer).

The PULMO-TMC UPSKILL initiative also led to our team developing low cost, in-house, innovative training manikins as well as novel teaching models for airway and pleural procedures.