From the President’s Desk

Dear Friends,

Dr. Sushma Bhatnagar

I am pleased to share the ongoing efforts of the palliative care community in India towards improving the provision of quality palliative care services to the millions of patients across the country who are in need of such services. It is heartening to see that the entire palliative care community is making every possible effort towards designing and providing quality training programs and initiating service provisioning across the country. In this newsletter, we have tried to compile and present to you the recent activities in palliative care from across the country.

March has been busy for us at the IAPC.

The speciality training program, the ‘Masterclass – ImPaCT NephroCare’, endorsed by the Academy of Palliative Medicine and the Indian Society of Nephrology, hosted their first live session in March. The program received an overwhelming response with 152 candidates enrolling for the program.

The IAPC successfully delivered the IAPC’s online ‘Certificate Course in Palliative Care Pharmacy’ on Saturday, 11th March, 2023, with 31 pharmacists successfully completing the training. The IAPC Academy also continued to present excellent online lectures weekly, which is being attended by an ever-increasing group of enthusiastic professionals from across the country.

Applications are also invited for the IAPC’s ‘Certificate Course in Palliative Care-Physiotherapy interface’ which aims to not only enhance a physiotherapists’ understanding of how they can contribute towards the rendering of holistic palliative care, but also educate the palliative care community on how physiotherapy can augment their patient care and symptom management.

I am excited to share that a ‘Spiritual Distress Scale in Palliative Care for India’ is now available in Hindi. Please click here for details about this unique tool. I hope that this tool will be useful for the palliative care groups in India.

I am also positively overwhelmed to read about the other educational initiatives by various organisations in the country especially of those collaborating with the NHM’s of their respective States, to organise training in palliative care. This is definitely a positive step towards achieving the goals of the National Program for Palliative Care.

Please visit the ‘Education and Training section’ of this newsletter, for further details about each of these programs.

In March 2023, the IAPC has successfully delivered several important and interesting projects, in addition to its regular activities.

The first of such projects was the webinar on ‘An update: Recent amendments to Advance Medical Directives and withdrawal of life support treatment’, which was successfully presented on Tuesday, 21st March, 2023. A record 270 participants from India and beyond participated in this very interesting and interactive webinar. Congratulations to the stellar panellists for delivering this very informative webinar. Please click here for the comprehensive report and to watch a recording of the webinar in case you missed it.  

The second project, I invite you to read is the ‘Holding hands by sharing experiences‘ project, which is a special feature, curated and dedicated to the current and potential new members of a palliative medicine specialist program (MD or DNB). This project brings together the thoughts, opinions and perspectives of a few seniors from the specialist training program, from across the country and also from across time periods, as a way of offering guidance and support to our current and potential newcomers in their professional journey.

The final unique project was the publication of ‘A Symphony of Words: A Collection of Poems’ published on Friday, 24th March, 2023, to celebrate World Poetry Day. I congratulate all the contributors and also invite you to savour and appreciate the creative contributions from our colleagues.

On behalf of the IAPC, I extend my hearty congratulations to Dr M R Rajagopal and Dr Naveen Salins for the prestigious awards they received for their exceptional knowledge and service. I also extend my wishes to Team Jawahar Lal Nehru Medical College, Ajmer, for receiving the NMC’s approval to begin offering MD in Palliative Medicine from this year. I am also excited for Team Alpha Palliative Care, for beginning work on their hospice. Please read the ‘Awards and Recognition Section’ for further information on this.

Congratulations to our contributors for their excellent articles, towards this month’s exclusive articles. Thank you, friends, for your support.

Once again, our deepest gratitude to Team SMA Nirvana, for presenting us with free, online, musical evenings, ‘Singing for the Stars’ in March 2023. Please click here to view the recordings from these concerts, in case you missed tuning in.  

Most importantly, don’t forget to update your details (if not done already) in the IAPC’s membership database. This important activity will not only help us communicate better with each other, but will also prove to be particularly useful if and when an online election needs to be conducted. Please click here to update your details (if not done already).

With warm regards,

Dr. Sushma Bhatnagar
President, IAPC