From the President’s Desk

Dear Friends,

Dr. Sushma Bhatnagar

On behalf of the IAPC, I am elated to announce travel scholarships worth Rs. 1,00,000/- for IAPC Members presenting papers at IAPCON 2023. The winners of the scholarship will be selected by the Scientific Committee of IAPCON 2023. Authors of the 10 best abstracts, will receive Rs. 10,000/- each as part of the scholarship. This scholarship (travel grant) is one of the ways in which the IAPC continues to motivate and encourage our youngsters to present their work on a global platform. Further details about the scholarship will be announced shortly. Please visit the conference website for further details about the scientific sessions and to submit your abstract.

I am extremely grateful to all the organizations who have come forward to submit / update details of their palliative care centres in the IAPC’s National Palliative Care Directory. Your two minutes to update / submit these details will make an invaluable difference in someone’s entire lifetime! For those of you who haven’t yet updated / submitted the details of your centre , I urge you to donate your time and be a bridge in alleviating the suffering of patients from across the country. Let no one be left behind! Please click here to update / submit the details of your center.

I am glad to share that the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences (NBEMS) had reached out to us in May 2022, to help invite Faculty from India’s Palliative Care community to deliver lectures for students pursuing DNB in Palliative Medicine. Lectures will be delivered every Monday, with over 60 lectures being slated to be delivered in the first phase of this lecture series. The first lecture of the series was delivered on Monday, 4th July, 2022. I would like to thank the NBEMS for organizing this initiative, and our Faculty for sharing their time and expertise towards enriching the knowledge of the DNB and MD students of Palliative Medicine.

The IAPC’s CCEPC batch of July 2022 has yet again trained over 400 doctors and nurses in the basics of palliative care. The program was conducted virtually over three weekends in July 2022. On behalf of the IAPC, I would like to thank Dr Lulu Mathews, for her able leadership, and to all the faculty, and centre coordinators for their support and contributions.

I am also excited to announce that the IAPC Academy’s online Lecture Series 5 will commence from Monday, 22nd August, 2022. Series 5 will focus on ‘Training in Palliative Care Research’. Please click here to view the schedule of the lectures lined up in Series 5.

I take this opportunity to also congratulate all the Palliative Care Institutions in India for organizing various training programs and launching new services. I also congratulate and send my best wishes to those who have received awards and recognitions for their services. Please continue reading this newsletter for further details about this.

I congratulate and thank our contributors from this month for their support in sharing articles for the ‘IAPC’s exclusive articles’ section. This month’s newsletter features articles from the below contributors:

Last but not least, our sincere gratitude to Team SMA Nirvana for their continued support towards organizing ‘Singing for the Stars’, our musical evenings for our patients and care givers from across the country. In addition to the ongoing monthly national programs, we will henceforth also present regional programs every month. The first such regional program was presented by Ms Aindrila Chatterjee and was organized successfully on Tuesday, 12th July, 2022, for our friends from West Bengal. Thank you team West Bengal for successfully organizing this program. Our monthly national multilingual program was presented by Mr Kumaran Muthuraman, on Saturday, 30th July, 2022. Thank you, Ms Chatterjee and Mr Muthuraman, for presenting such lovely evening of harmonies for our palliative care community! I invite you to join us and experience the magic of music during the national and the regional programs scheduled for August. Further details about these upcoming programs is available in the ‘Announcement / Messages from IAPC’ section of this Newsletter.

With warm regards,

Dr. Sushma Bhatnagar
President, IAPC