The KHMH got regional recognition last week when one its doctors, Physician Jorge Hidalgo, received 2 prestigious awards in intensive care medicine.
While it's a recognition of the doctor himself, it's a major nod for the hospital to note that its intensive care unit has passed international standards with flying colors.
Today, we spoke with Hidalgo about being the first Doctor in the Caribbean to receive this honor:
Dr. Jorge Hidalgo, Awarded Intensive Care Honors
"Just last week I got Masters in Critical Medicine. The Master of Critical Medicine is conferred by the medical college of critical care and the path to get into the Masters is initially we need to be a fellow of the American College of Critical Care and to be able to join the fellowship, we need to be leading the critical care in 3 aspects criteria; 1) to be working in an intensive care unit, the head of the intensive unit at Karl Heusner. We developed that unit with Dr. Ariaga a couple years ago. However, since 2001 we opened the first intensive care unit in Belize at Universal Health Services, now Belize Healthcare Partners, but the first intensive care unit that was opened in the country and since then we are working dedicating to the Intensive care unit since then. The other criteria is that we need to develop programs 
and to collaborate on education. To able to collaborate we, Dr. Ariaga and myself found the Belize Society of Critical Care Medicine, not to compete with the Belize Medical and Dental Association. Its just to collaborate and to look ways to link with other partners with critical care medicine around the world. We usually have an annual symposium on Sceptics in September for the last 4 years and that helps us to start links. We need to recognize that Karl Heusner is a referral hospital. That means that we get the most critical ill patients from all over the country and also if someone needs a consult with the specialists like neurosurgery, cardiologist, then those patients are referred to us. We get all those patients from all the districts and if you remember like in 2000 by now, the type of services and the level of care is provided at Karl Heusner - you can compare. In the last years we have now the intensive care unit, that is a dedicated unit that wasn't there a couple of years ago."
These awards are the highest mark of distinction in the field of Intensive Care Medicine.
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