From the President’s Desk

Dear Friends,

Dr. Sushma Bhatnagar

I am delighted to share that the Supreme Court of India is set to ease the process for Advance Medical Directives (Living Will) and withdrawal of life support treatment for our patients. I am certain that these landmark directions from the Court will make things much more doable. I request you to continue reading the ‘Announcements / Messages from IAPC’ section of this newsletter for further information on this. I extend my heartiest congratulations to all those who have been involved in making this possible.

The well curated academic fiesta and the much-awaited physical conference, IAPCON 2023, is just around the corner. I am sure that the palliative care fraternity from across the globe is waiting to reconnect in-person to network, collaborate and enrich one’s knowledge. “This year, it is an attempt to look at subspeciality palliative medicine. This will certainly be a gamechanger”, says an excited Dr Nagesh Simha, Chairperson, IAPCON 2023, in an exclusive interview with the IAPC. We, at the IAPC, also share the excitement and enthusiasm of the IAPCON 2023’s organising team. On behalf of the IAPC, I welcome all the delegates to participate at IAPCON 2023, scheduled to be held at Bengaluru in February.

2023 began with a bunch of amazing programs for us, here at IAPC. The sixth online batch of the IAPC’s Certificate Course in Essentials of Palliative Care, was held in January 2023, with a record number of registrations. A total of 564 doctors and nurses enrolled through the 48 IAPC authorised course centres from across India. Congratulations to all those candidates who completed their ‘Part A’ (Theory sessions) component of the course, and we also welcome each of you to palliative care community in India! On behalf of the IAPC, I would like to extend my heart felt gratitude to our course coordinators for their support and to especially Dr Lulu Mathews, Chairperson, Board of Examiners, IAPC, for her able leadership towards this program.

I am also happy to share that over the last month, the IAPC has successfully initiated a training program in Palliative Care for the Medical and Nursing Officers from 10 District hospitals in Bihar, and for a team of clinicians from the Homi Bhabha Cancer Hospital and Research Center (HBCHRC), Muzaffarpur. The first phase of this program was a 2.5 day theory based training program which was organised in collaboration with the State Health Society, Bihar, and HBCHRC Muzaffarpur. 24 Doctors and 44 Nurses were trained in this phase of the program. The next phase of the training is a week-long hands-on / practical training program offered jointly by the IAPC and other stakeholders. Further details of this second phase of the training will be shared in the next edition of the newsletter. We hope for this initiative to spread the availability of palliative care services across Bihar.  

The IAPC jointly with the Amrit Dhara Palliative Care Trust, Bhubaneswar, successfully trained 35 enthusiastic palliative care volunteers in Bhubaneswar between Friday, 6th January, 2023, and Sunday, 8th January, 2023. I congratulate Dr Mami Parija and Dr Ganpathy KV for ably leading this training program.

We, at the IAPC, celebrated the ‘International Day of Education’ earlier this month, by publishing a list of suggested / recommended readings in palliative medicine / care. Please visit the ‘Announcements / Messages from IAPC’ section of this newsletter for further details about this. I invite you to go through this valuable resource and take steps towards making these resources available at your institutions, if not available already.

Series 6 of the IAPC Academy’s online Lecture series are being delivered every Monday with enthusiastic participation from our palliative care community, despite the chill and wintery mornings. A report from the sessions held in January, along with an invitation to join us for the sessions in February can be found in the ‘Education and Training’ section of this newsletter. Do join us on every Monday morning to refresh your knowledge and discuss the various concepts in Palliative Care.

On behalf of the IAPC, I would like to acknowledge and celebrate several of our colleagues for their awards, recognitions, and achievements. I congratulate each of you for your dedication and hard work to further the agenda of palliative care!

I invite you to read unique and thought provoking articles published in this month’s edition of the newsletter. You can access these inspiring articles from the ‘Interesting reads  – IAPC’s exclusive articles’ section of this newsletter. Congratulations to all the contributors! The contributors of this section are:

Last but not the least, my sincere gratitude to our ‘Singing for the Stars’ partner organisation, the Sharkar Mahadevan Academy Nirvana for their consistent support towards delivering free musical concerts for our patients and their caregivers, and our colleagues, our real stars in Palliative Care. I thank and congratulate Mr Anirudh Iyer, and Ms Archana Kamath Hegdekar, for presenting us with our regional program in January. I also thank our guest singers for their enthusiasm and spirit of participation during this regional program. I invite each of to join us at 2:50 p.m. on Friday, 24th February, 2023, for our next multilingual edition of ‘Singing for the Stars’.

Looking forward to meeting each of you soon at IAPCON 2023 in Bengaluru!

With warm regards,

Dr. Sushma Bhatnagar
President, IAPC